Other Titles • Seven Days in May • Sieben Tage im Mai (1964)
Synopses for Seven Days in May (1964)
1.
It happens with startling swiftness and violence. An armed cadre seizes state control. Fortunately, a coup d'etat can't happen here Or can it!
A classic of suspense directed by John Frakenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin) and written for the screen by Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone), Seven Days in May tautly explores that possibility. At odds are a popular general and joint chiefs of Staff Chairman (Burt Lancaster) and an unpopular President (Fredric March) with a pacifist agenda. At stake is the survival of the Republic. A vigilant colonel (Kirk Douglas) uncovers the scheme. But are the seven fateful days ahead enough time to derail a takeover? The clock is ticking.
(16 votes)
2.
Burt Lancaster stars as General James Scott in Frankenheimer's film of Rod Serling's adaptation of Fletcher Knebel and Charles Waldo Bailey's bestselling novel set in the early 1960s. Like much of the American public, Gen. Scott, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff is unhappy with a nuclear arms pact with the Soviet Union recently signed by President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March). But the extent of Scott's displeasure is not fully understood until his aide, Col. Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), finds some messages suggesting that the general and the Joint Chiefs have been planning a military takeover of the government at a top-secret air base in Texas. The plan is scheduled to go into effect in seven days, while the president is in sequestration during a military drill. Duly informed, the President sends Senator Raymond Clark (Edmond O'Brien), to investigate the base, and the Senator is held there against his will. In Gibraltar, presidential aide Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) obtains evidence of the coup from Admiral Paul Barnswell (John Houseman), but after the aide is killed in the crash of his return flight, the admiral denies any knowledge of an imminent military takeover. Although dialogue-heavy for a thriller, it remains an effective slice of cold war paranoia, with echoes of the Cuban missile standoff that may have been absorbed from Frankenheimer's friend, Robert F. Kennedy.
(16 votes)
3.
John Frankenheimer's follow-up to The Manchurian Candidate is as intimate and subdued as its predecessor is flamboyant and energetic. Burt Lancaster is calm and calculating as the steely-eyed military hawk General Scott, who opposes the president's (Fredric March) plan to end the cold war with a bold nuclear disarmament plan. Lancaster's longtime friend and frequent costar Kirk Douglas is his smiling, joking right-hand man, Colonel "Jiggs" Casey, whose easygoing manner is jolted by evidence of a possible plot to overthrow the American government. Scripted by Rod Serling from the novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey, the film plays much like a classic live TV drama (the medium that spawned both Frankenheimer and Serling), with the drama arising from conversations and confrontations and the action largely limited to scenes within the Pentagon and the White House. An ominous undercurrent of danger seeps through the realistic (and often real) settings of the film, conveyed chiefly through the intensity of the excellent ensemble performances. Notable among the supporting cast are Ava Gardner as a lonely Washington socialite who was once the general's mistress, Edmond O'Brien as an amiable alcoholic senator, Martin Balsam as the president's shrewd but skeptical secretary, and underrated character actor George Macready as the wily presidential advisor. --Sean Axmaker
(15 votes)
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