The 1960s were the decade when the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was at its height. It was also the time when Americans, following the sinister murder of John F. Kennedy, began having doubts about the integrity of their government, a feeling which has never really gone away, even in a post-9/11 climate. One of the great political movies of that era was John Frankenheimer's 1964 movie SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, based on the Charles Bailey/Fletcher Knebel novel of the same name. It is a stark and dramatic piece and, frequently, disturbing in its realism.
Frederic March stars as President Jordan Lyman, who has signed a treaty with the Soviets to reduce the quantity of nuclear weapons on both sides of the Iron Curtain. March's decision, however, results in a huge drop for him in the polls, with certain hard-bitten segments of the American populace mad as hell that he would trust a regime like the Soviets to comply with the treaty when they've never complied with any made before.
Already, this has provoked the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by the taciturn General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), to instigate a forced takeover of the government--a coup d'etat, in other words. But his second-in-command, Jiggs (Kirk Douglas), who had been with him on his other operations, is for some strange reason locked out of what Lancaster has in mind. Douglas tries to garner some evidence of what his boss is doing, and what he finds is exceedingly troubling. He learns of a secret base or operation called ECOMCON (Emergency Command and Control), supposedly located in Texas, where plans for a coup are underway, with the time frame of the coup to take place during a one-week period in May.
Douglas has no actual hard evidence to finger Lancaster as a renegade, but even though he opposed March signing the treaty with the Soviets, he does not believe that what Lancaster is supposedly planning is any good way to run a democracy. He brings what he knows to March, and March becomes concerned but not too paranoid. He sends both his vice president (Martin Balsam) and a good friend of his, Ray Clark (Edmond O'Brien), a congenial but inebriated senator from Georgia, to investigate. But weird and troubling things happen in the process--Balsam gets killed in a plane crash, and O'Brien, having discovered the existence of ECOMCON in Texas, goes mysteriously under for a few days.
Then reality sets in. After Douglas brings further evidence of a coup that he obtained from Lancaster's ex-wife (Ava Gardner), March is ready to confront Lancaster. But he also realizes that neither Lancaster nor the whole Joint Chiefs are the real cause of this crisis; it is the nuclear age of the present time that is at the heart of it all. When confronted by March's evidence in the Oval Office, Lancaster angrily accuses March of being "a criminally weak sister" and predicting a nuclear war in which one hundred million Americans will be killed. March responds that if Lancaster is so concerned, then he should run for office, not plot a forced take-over. When March announces to the nation what happened and the reasons for it, Lancaster and his cronies are dismissed.
Although the Cold War is over, and it has been nearly forty years since it came out, SEVEN DAYS IN MAY is still a fine political drama to this very day. There are at least three reasons for this. One is the direction of Frankenheimer (who sadly passed away in Los Angeles yesterday of a stroke); his ability to create suspenseful situations, first seen in 1962's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and again in 1977's BLACK SUNDAY, is very close to the equal of Hitchcock. Another is the ensemble acting here. There are heavy hitters in this film, especially Lancaster in a chilling performance and March in one of incredible strength. Thirdly is the fine screenplay adaptation by Rod Serling, which has a morality and a message that does not get too overtly heavy-handed.
The film's theme of a coup d'etat might have seemed outlandish in 1964, but it wouldn't today--not if what Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK tried to prove was even slightly true. A coup of the sort that this film depicts can conceivably happen if the right elements are in the right places. But SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, in its own suspense-laden fashion, shows us why it would not do America any good to destroy even a flawed government. This is one of the greatest and most memorable films of its time and its type, and comes vigorously recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
Video Occasion: Good for Groups Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.