- John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May does something that no modern political thriller would even consider: it gives its villain a pulpit. While it is immediately clear that we are meant to be suspicious of General James M. Scott (Burt Lancaster) and his machinations, the film never paints him as anything other than a misguided patriot and even grants him the opportunity to explain himself. In a rousing televised speech, Scott describes the recent arms reduction treaty with the Soviets as an act of "criminal negligence" because he frankly doubts that the Russians intend to honor it. There's no mustache-twirling, no hostage-taking, and no revelation that all along Scott has been working for the enemy. As President Lyman (Fredric March) puts it, the real enemy is the "nuclear age" that could drive Scott and his adoring public to such extremes. The point of the film is: that can be trouble enough.
- The hero at the heart of this conflict is Colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), a man torn between obeying Scott, his commanding officer, and upholding the laws of the land. To be fair, Casey never wavers in his devotion to law and order, but Douglas' completely convincing performance makes it clear that reporting on his superior does not come naturally to Casey. But what to report? All Casey really knows comes from rumors of a strange unit called "EComCon" whose existence nobody seems to be able to confirm. His friend, Colonel Henderson (Andrew Duggan), thinks it odd that the unit spends "more time training for seizure than for prevention," and Casey is particularly concerned with a Preakness betting pool involving lots of military brass and very little horse racing. Finally, Casey reluctantly approaches the President, and the investigation begins.
- Strangely enough, my favorite part of the film is probably this meeting, in which Casey must convince the President, a charismatic Southern senator (Edmond O'Brien), and a room full of advisors (Martin Balsam, George Macready) that the United States is about to experience a military coup. A lesser film would have made one of these characters secretly complicit in Scott's plan, but this one is content to render them as honest men who are appropriately skeptical of this improbable plot. Ultimately, whether they succeed or fail in stopping Scott may hinge upon one general's (John Houseman) written confession lost in a plane crash or some old love letters belonging to the much put-upon Eleanor Holbrook (Ava Gardner) who once had an affair with Scott. Naturally, one hopes that the office of the President is sufficiently secure that its continuance would not depend upon such obscure evidence, but the film suggests otherwise.
- While Seven Days in May is a noble indictment of the human tendency to warmly embrace militarism at the first sign of trouble, the film is destined to be forever overshadowed by Frankenheimer's earlier film, The Manchurian Candidate. Like that film, Seven Days in May deals with unlikely political conspiracy and rampant paranoia, but The Manchurian Candidate is unquestionably more psychologically rich, suspenseful, and terrifying. Neither film is quite sure what to do with its female love interests, although Ava Gardner seems even more misused than Janet Leigh as collateral damage in a war run exclusively by men. Furthermore, despite being an unabashed fan of The Twilight Zone, even I found screenwriter Rod Serling's overt moralizing in Seven Days in May a little too heavy-handed for a feature-length film. In the end, it's a great set of acting performances shot in stark black and white, notable for its fairness and honesty, but ultimately relegated to the status of also-ran by its own director's superior earlier work.
- Also starring Hugh Marlowe and Whit Bissell.
- Based on a novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II and possibly modeled on real-life U.S. Generals Walker and LeMay.
