Seven Days in May
Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film about a military-political cabal's planned takeover of the United States government in reaction to the president's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The film, starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner, was directed by John Frankenheimer from a screenplay written by Rod Serling and based on the novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, published in September 1962.[2]
This article is about the film. For the 1962 novel on which it is based, see Seven Days in May (novel).Seven Days in May
the novel
by Fletcher Knebel &
Charles W. Bailey II
- February 12, 1964 (Washington, DC)
118 minutes
United States
English
$2.2 million
$3,650,000 (rentals)[1]
Plot[edit]
During the Cold War, the unpopular U.S. President Jordan Lyman has signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, and ratification by the Senate produced a wave of dissatisfaction, especially among Lyman's political opposition and the military, who believe the Russians cannot be trusted. His popularity reaches an all-time low of 29%, and rioting about the treaty occurs right outside the White House. The presidential physician warns him of a dangerous cardiac condition which he blithely disregards, too busy to take a prescribed two-week vacation.
United States Marine Corps Colonel "Jiggs" Casey is the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He serves its chairman, four-star United States Air Force general James Mattoon Scott, a highly-decorated commander and air ace.
Casey stumbles upon evidence that Scott is leading the Joint Chiefs to stage a coup d'etat to remove Lyman in seven days. Under the plan, disguised as a training exercise, a secret army unit known as ECOMCON, training at a secret Texas base, will take control of the country's telephone, radio, and television networks while the president, participating in a staged "alert," is seized. Scott, who is busy advancing his charismatic public persona through nationally televised anti-treaty rallies, plans to head a military junta. Although personally opposed to Lyman's policies, Casey is appalled by the plot and alerts Lyman.
Still somewhat skeptical, Lyman gathers a circle of trusted advisors to investigate: Secret Service White House detail chief Art Corwin, Treasury Secretary Christopher Todd, longtime advisor Paul Girard, and Raymond Clark, the senior U.S. senator from Georgia and a close friend of 21 years.
Casey has deduced that the heads of all U.S. military branches but the Navy support Scott's coup scheme, with Vice Admiral Barnswell, then aboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, apparently the only invited officer to decline. Lyman cancels a previous commitment to participate in Scott's alert, pretending he will be away for a fishing weekend. He then dispatches Girard to Gibraltar to obtain Barnswell's confession, sends the alcoholic Clark to Texas to locate the secret base, and tasks Casey to gather dirt on the general's private life. Meanwhile, the Secret Service surreptitiously films evidence of an attempt to kidnap the president during the phony fishing trip, removing all doubts about the existence of a plot.
Girard successfully secures Barnswell's confession in writing, but it disappears during a plane crash in Spain. Clark is taken captive when he reaches the secret base and held incommunicado. Exploiting Casey's longtime friendship with the base's deputy commander Colonel Henderson, Clark convinces Henderson of the actual intent of the impending "alert". Henderson frees Clark and leads an escape back to Washington but is abducted and confined in a military stockade. In a radiophone conference call with the president, Barnswell denies knowledge of any conspiracy.
Knowing he cannot prove Scott's guilt, Lyman nevertheless calls Scott to the White House to demand that he and the other conspirators resign. Scott refuses and denies the existence of any plot. Lyman argues that a coup would prompt the Soviets to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. Scott maintains that the American people are behind him. Lyman challenges him to resign and run for office in order to seek power legitimately, but Scott is unmoved. Lyman restrains himself from confronting Scott with damning letters that Casey had obtained from Scott's old mistress Eleanor Holbrook. Casey, who has his own romantic interest in Holbrook, eventually returns them to her.
Scott meets the other three Joint Chiefs and reasserts his intention to execute the coup. He plans a nighttime network broadcast, but Lyman holds an afternoon press conference to announce he has fired the four men. As he speaks, Barnswell's confession, recovered from the plane crash, is handed to him and he delays the conference. In the interim, copies of the confession are delivered to Scott and the other plotters. As the conference resumes, Scott abandons the plan and, devastated, returns home when Lyman announces that the other three conspirators have resigned.
Lyman delivers a speech on the state of the nation and its values, declaring that the nation gains strength through peace rather than by conflict. The press corps applauds.
Background[edit]
The book was written in late 1961 and into early 1962 during the first year of the Kennedy administration, reflecting some of the events of that era. In November 1961, President John F. Kennedy accepted the resignation of vociferously anti-communist general Edwin Walker, who had been indoctrinating the troops under his command with radical right-wing ideas and personal political opinions, including describing Harry S. Truman, Dean Acheson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other active public figures as communist sympathizers.[4] Although no longer in uniform, Walker continued to make headlines as he ran for governor of Texas and made speeches promoting strongly right-wing views. In the film version of Seven Days in May, Fredric March, portraying the narrative's fictional president Jordan Lyman, mentions General Walker as one of the "false prophets" who were offering themselves to the public as leaders.
As Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, primarily political journalists and columnists, collaborated on the novel, they also conducted interviews with another highly controversial military commander, the newly appointed Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay, who was angry with Kennedy for refusing to provide air support for the Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.[5][6] The character of General James Mattoon Scott was believed to have been inspired by both LeMay and Walker.
President Kennedy had read the novel Seven Days in May shortly after its publication and believed that the scenario could actually occur in the United States. According to director John Frankenheimer, the project received encouragement and assistance from Kennedy through White House press secretary Pierre Salinger, who conveyed to Frankenheimer Kennedy's wish that the film be produced. In spite of Defense Department opposition, Kennedy arranged to visit the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House.[7]
Soundtrack[edit]
David Amram, who had previously scored Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962), originally provided music for the film, but Lewis was unsatisfied with his work. Jerry Goldsmith, who had worked with the producer and Douglas on Lonely Are the Brave (also 1962) and The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), was signed to rescore the project.
Goldsmith composed a very brief score (lasting around 15 minutes) using only pianos and percussion; he later scored Seconds (1966) and The Challenge (1982) for Frankenheimer.[17]
In 2013, Intrada Records released Goldsmith's music for the film on a limited-edition CD (paired with Maurice Jarre's score for The Mackintosh Man – although that film was produced by Warner Bros. while Seven Days in May was theatrically released by Paramount. The entire Seven Arts Productions library had been acquired by Warner Bros. back in 1967.
Remake[edit]
The film was remade in 1994 by HBO as The Enemy Within with Sam Waterston as President William Foster, Jason Robards as General R. Pendleton Lloyd, and Forest Whitaker as Colonel MacKenzie "Mac" Casey. This version followed many parts of the original plot closely, while updating it for the post–Cold War world, omitting certain incidents and changing the ending.