Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford outside of a hotel in 1975. Fifty years later, she tells her story in Seattle-based Robinson Devor’s gripping documentary, Suburban Fury.
In 1975, in San Francisco, only seventeen days after Manson devotee Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme attempted to murder President Gerald R. Ford, another woman (the only two women to attempt to assassinate the President) also tried. Standing forty feet away from Ford, she raised her arm and fired two shots. One narrowly missed. The other hit a taxi driver (he lived) after a bystander forced the shooter’s arm away. The shooter was Sara Jane Moore.
Sara Jane Moore is an intriguing subject. In approaching the documentary, Moore demanded that she be the only interview subject. She is more than enough to drive the tale. She’s loud. She’s brash. She’s committed to telling her story, her way. In a series of interviews in a station wagon overlooking San Francisco, and in the hotel ballroom she was interrogated in after the attempt, she unfolds the life that led to the attempted assassination—or her version of it. I dare not delve into the details of said life, preferring to let Devor do it in his way, except to note it’s intriguing and riveting.
This isn’t just Moore’s story. To fully understand what led to the central action, and what happened after, Devor unfolds the political culture of the 1970s, effectively working as a primer of the ups and downs of American foreign and domestic culture, the landscape of espionage and subterfuge. Devor’s use of historical sources, news programs, archival interviews, newspapers, and the like creates a portrait of the tumultuous time. A focus is placed on Patty Hearst and her whole deal with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Fitting, as Moore was obsessed with Patty Hearst, and connected via working as a bookkeeper for Randolph Hearst’s People in Need fund, while also performing as an FBI informant. Yes, Moore wasn’t just a random, but a secret government employee, meant to watch revolutionaries… but became one herself.
Moore, who served 32 years in prison for the crime, and the culture around her actions combine into a delicious meal of truths, lies, and the area between them. She tries to control the narrative, restarting the stories, questioning Devor’s questions as he prods her off-screen. She yells and gets annoyed with the title’s suburban fury. Moore may insist on appearing as the only interviewee, but she’s not the only subject, as mixed into her tale are the notes of her FBI handler, “Bertram Worthington,” as read by the director. Worthington’s wider appraisal of Moore creates a counter-narrative that questions her past, her actions for and against the United States.
The questions of the truth of any of what we’re told from Moore, Worthington, the government, or other sources give layers to the situation and the story. Who is Moore? There is little to know of her outside of her testimony and Worthington’s words. What is her true past? As the demanded only talking head, no one else can speak to or about her and her life. Who was Worthington? Are his notes the truth, or shifts things to cover himself? Was she radicalized by the government or because of what she saw as an informant? How many shadowy figures lurk just off the informed narrative? Questions on questions, all mixed into Moore’s fractured, cagey narrative.
Suburban Fury is an engaging portrait of a semi-forgotten public figure (Squiggy’s Manson connections got all the press, though Moore is also featured in Sondheim’s Assassins, a favorite musical of mine). Moore’s complex, compelling, and inconsistent narrative, mixed with the history of the times, leads to a fantastic documentary of simmering rage and radicalization.