SEVEN DAYS IN MAY @ 60

It's the eve of a disarmament deal between the US and the USSR and Colonel Casey (aka Jiggs) is noticing strange things happening around him. His boss, General Scott, seems to be gearing up for a profile lift and it's working. He's attracted the support of conservative media figures. Even the protestors outside the White House have reduced their conflict point to support of either President Lyman or the General. Jiggs, loyal to the General for many years, is getting worried about a possibly too secret communications section and some cryptic wires passing between the chiefs of staff that appear to be about betting on horses but look suspiciously like code. Nothing is quite adding up to normal so, as General Scott makes a fiery speech against the disarmament talks, Jiggs goes straight to the President and reports his suspicions. Things are pointing to a military coup. A few crucial details gets him taken seriously and he is asked to report from the belly of the beast.

For political thrillers, this one really couldn't have a better pedigree. John Manchurian Candidate Frankenheimer was slated to direct Rod Twilight Zone Serling's adaptation of the Cold War thriller of the same title and the cast was stellar. With the likes of Frederick March as the President, Martin Balsam as his adviser, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas at full strength as the General and Jiggs respectively, as well as a poignant turn by Ava Gardner as a cast off Washington wife, things are set to work. And work they do.

Frankenheimer's challenge was to render this wall to wall talkfest into a compelling thriller. In doing so, he extended the work of his solid classic The Manchurian Candidate to add a box of tropes for political thrillers down to now. Sudden disappearances in public places, deep focus dialogues, guerrilla filmmaking at buildings and even a warship to break open some veracity, as well as a few sneakily inserted predictive technologies like the video conferencing in one scene (it's subtle about it but the story is set several years into the future, in 1970, easily missed today).

Burt Lancaster brings a layered character to the General. He is boomingly self-entitled as a political actor but observes the military code of allowing his medal salad on his uniform to tell his story without embellishment. He seems more ashamed at the potential that his incriminating letters to his ex might embarrass him through their intimacy than with any revelation of state secrets or illicit ambitions. In his exchanges with Jiggs, especially once his awareness of the betrayal at hand is clear, he travels from a whispered confidence to a barely controlled contempt, the stiffness of his posture containing thunder.

Kirk Douglas plays Jiggs as a career officer who is watching as the tide turns, doesn't like it but must accept it. For all the respect he has for Scott he knows Scott's tilt at politics will see him falling through the void if successful. He conceals his disdain for the world of politics as he understands that it is necessary if the tenets of his beliefs (like the Constitution) are to be maintained. 

Both Lancaster and Douglas were action heroes and both were already getting through a decade in which the principles of the self-justifying hero could no longer apply. They adapted into roles like The Swimmer and The Arrangement which featured their demographic laid bare. Their efforts didn't and couldn't shut down toxic masculinity (which can still claim biology as its teacher, pleasantly or not) but they could do turns like this which suggest that while the world of barking machos might reappear after other options prove effective, there will always be a need to grab the muzzles and regroup, pause for a breath and a good look around, and walk gently back into humanity. Movies like this can help us remember that.

I hired Seven Days in May through Prime Video but it should be available on comparable sources.