by Janice L. Newman

Seven Days in May premiered three nights ago!  My husband and I made sure to get to the theater early, as we wanted to claim good seats for this star-studded and much anticipated political drama.  Given the amount of talent assembled both in front of and behind the camera, there was no way the film would be a disaster.  At the same time, Seven Days in May wasn’t quite an unmitigated success.  The film is a flawed jewel, the minor imperfections standing out all the more so against the clarity and glitter of an otherwise perfect gem.

The Plot

The movie opens with a fight between protestors, some of whom support the US President and others who oppose him.  The scene is filled with powerful imagery, but doesn’t do much more than set the tone for the story.  I suspect the director chose to start the movie this way to give stragglers a chance to find a seat without missing any of the meat of the story.

Once the riot is over, we’re introduced to the President himself, “Jordan Lyman,” played by Fredric March (you may remember him from his performance in Inherit the Wind as Matthew Harrison Brady).  We quickly learn that the President has signed a disarmament treaty with the Russians, and this has angered the general populace.  The newspaper headlines blare the fact that only 29% of the public support him.  It’s hard to imagine any US President having such a low popularity rating as that outside of an event like the Great Depression, especially one who supports peace.  But the public are convinced that the Commies are only playing along and will stab us in the back at the earliest opportunity.

One of the many people who oppose the President’s actions is US Air Force General James Mattoon Scott, played by Burt Lancaster.  We are introduced to him as he makes a compelling case before Congress, insisting that trusting the Russians, who have ‘broken every single treaty’, will spell the doom of the United States.  Looking on as he makes his case in a beautifully framed shot is the handsome Kirk Douglas as USMC Colonel Martin “Jiggs” Casey.

From there the story follows Jiggs, who encounters a number of strange things that don’t seem to fit together: a newly constructed base he’s sure he’s never heard of, a top secret betting pool whose members comprise most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Senator who seems to know more about upcoming military maneuvers than he should, and other odds and ends that add up to a deeply troubling picture.  Jiggs must choose whether to turn a blind eye or take his suspicions to the President despite the circumstantial nature of his evidence.  If he’s wrong, his career will certainly be ruined.  But if he’s right, the scale of the plot and its ultimate target are staggering: it’s no less than a plan to kidnap the President and take over the United States government.  In the end, Jiggs follows his conscience, and the consequences of his choice drive the rest of the movie.

Unapologetically Liberal

Though based on the 1962 novel by Charles W. Bailey II and Fletcher Knebel, the screenplay is by Rod Serling – and it shows.  Mr. Serling’s work on Twilight Zone has earned him much acclaim (with good reason) but he’s never been shy about stuffing his character’s mouths with his own political views.  Since I tend to share Serling's views, I’m more inclined to be impatient with his lack of subtlety than enraged by his wrongheadedness.  Your own reaction may vary, of course.

The politics of the film are unapologetically liberal, with the villains having no hesitation in castigating ‘bleeding-hearts’ and ‘intellectuals’.  At the same time, the villains are not portrayed cartoonishly, which I appreciated.  Scott in particular is charismatic and convincing.  You can understand why the public likes him and trusts him.  He is passionate and sincere in his belief that what he is doing is both right and necessary.

Of course we, the enlightened audience, know that for all his sincerity he is wrong.  Continuing to build a larger and larger stockpile of nuclear weapons, we are told, can lead to only one outcome: the eventual destruction of the human race.  I don’t disagree with this attitude, but it did come across as a rather glib – as one might expect of Serling.

Nevertheless, for the most part, Serling's screenplay works – in no small part thanks to the excellence of the actors performing it. Douglas adds a subtlety to his role that transcends his (mostly good) lines. March's tears at the death of a good friend are all too believable. And the work of co-stars Balsam and Edmond O'Brien, President Lyman's right and left hand men, are excellent in outsized proportion to their screen time.

Fantastic Framing and Marvelous Music

The best part of the movie was the cinematography.  The indoor shots are thoughtfully framed, with one particularly memorable discussion with Scott presented against a background of model missiles and Jiggs with the American flag behind him.  When written out like that it sounds, like the rest of the movie, as though it might be a bit too ‘on point,’ but it was so beautifully done that I couldn’t help but appreciate it.  In addition to this we are treated with some impressive outdoor shots, from the desert surrounding the secret base, to a character being ferried to an aircraft carrier across the ocean, to scenes on the aircraft carrier itself.

There are also convincing notes that place the movie in the future: two-way video phones, for example, and prominently placed digital time and date displays.

The music was also extremely good, with lots of driving military march drums contrasting sharply with discordant notes.  There was no music during most of the talking scenes, but the scoring during action scenes created an unsettling, nervous atmosphere that was highly effective.

Out of Joint

My husband noted that the story felt somewhat disjointed, and I agreed.  The point of view jumps around from character to character as the plot dictates.  Personally, I almost would have preferred seeing everything through Kirk Douglas’s eyes.

The most jarring note was the inclusion of Ava Gardner’s character, Scott’s former mistress, Eleanor Holbrook.  I’m not sure why she was even there, as in the end her performance, as good as it is, doesn’t add much to the story.  There’s a bit of sex appeal and a bit of tragedy to her, but overall her role is to give Jiggs some potentially incriminating evidence that he hesitates to use, thus reminding us that he is a ‘good guy’. 

Of course, Eleanor is a woman in a man’s world, with men filling every important position in government, the military, the press, and pretty much everything else.  Since the story is set only ten years in the future, I suppose that view of the world isn’t unrealistic.  I can’t help but hope, though, that we’ll eventually see women in roles other than “spurned lover” and “oversexed waitress” in stories about the future, if not in the future itself.  At the very least, it would be nice to see a few more movies where women speak to each other.

But in the end, Two Hours Well-Spent

Despite its flaws, Seven Days in May is still two hours well-spent.  What the movie does well, it does masterfully.  The acting is great, especially Douglas, whose understated performance is more convincing than either of the pontificating leads.  The cinematography is top-notch, and the music is compelling.  If it weren’t for Serling’s insistence on driving his points home with a sledgehammer and the disjointed feel caused in part by the need for the story to jump from character to character, I would have given them film five stars without question.  Parts of the movie deserve that rating all on their own.  It’s worth a watch.

Four stars.