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Seven Days in May (1964)
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Additional DVD options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
DVD
May 16, 2000 "Please retry" | — | 1 |
—
| $17.88 | $6.23 |
Watch Instantly with | Rent | Buy |
Purchase options and add-ons
Genre | Action & Adventure |
Format | NTSC |
Contributor | Edmond O'Brien, John Frankenheimer, Hugh Marlowe, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, George Macready, Whit Bissell, Martin Balsam, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner See more |
Language | English |
Runtime | 1 hour and 58 minutes |
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Product Description
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 Frankenheimer (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.
Product details
- Aspect Ratio : 1.33:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Product Dimensions : 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches; 2.4 ounces
- Director : John Frankenheimer
- Media Format : NTSC
- Run time : 1 hour and 58 minutes
- Release date : November 22, 2016
- Actors : Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien
- Studio : Warner Archive Collection
- ASIN : B01LTHXM0M
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #35,123 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #3,525 in Action & Adventure DVDs
- #5,878 in Drama DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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But this movie was made back when the threat was quite new, and seemed quite dire, and as I said, the plot revolves around the struggle between two factions, one who believes deterrence is the only answer, and the other, which believes that only disarmament would end the danger. (Spoilers ahead!) Frederic March plays U.S. President Jordan Lyman, a believer in disarmament. He is absolutely convinced of the inevitability of nuclear war if both sides don't disarm, and signs a treaty to eliminate the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Burt Lancaster plays Air Force General James Matoon Scott, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a well-known and very popular war hero, who believes the opposite: that disarmament is inexcusably naïve; that the Soviets, who have a long history of breaking treaties, cannot be trusted to honor this one; that once America scraps its arsenal, but the Soviets keep theirs, then war would indeed be inevitable, but so also would total defeat. (I have to say personally, that I agree with the second premise: disarmament and disarmament treaties have a poor track record -- the democracies voluntarily disarmed between the two world wars, and signed disarmament treaties [e.g. the Washington Naval Treaty], but the dictatorships armed themselves and made war against enemies who looked weak and unwilling to fight. The ancient Romans got it right all those centuries ago: si vis pacem para bellum.) General Scott is so convinced of the sheer folly of Lyman's course, that he resolves to seize control of the government. Caught in the middle is Scott's aide, marine colonel "Jiggs" Casey, who fully agrees with Scott's assessment of the folly of disarmament, but is repelled at the thought of overthrowing the legitimately elected government of the United States and installing a military junta. Casey realizes, correctly, that it's a cure far worse than the disease. It would mean throwing away the rule of law, and the political stability and peaceful transfer of power that the U.S. has enjoyed for two centuries, and would entail the U.S. becoming just another banana republic, with all the corruption and political instability that would bring. It could lead to a government as repressive and authoritarian as that of the Soviets. So, despite his misgivings about Lyman's policy, Casey works to uncover and thwart the conspiracy before the coup d'état can take place.
This is a great movie, with superb direction and pacing, outstanding performances from a stellar cast, and a great, suspenseful story, and finally, is a superb window to the dangers and concerns of the Cold War era. It comes highly recommended.
SEVEN DAYS takes place during the darkest days of the Cold War. The nation's deeply unpopular president, Jordan Lyman (Frederic March) has just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, a move angrily opposed by the Joint Chiefs, most notably their charismatic Chairman, General James Matoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), who feel this is a sign of weakness that will provoke, rather than prevent, a nuclear war. Scott's able and loyal aide, Marine colonel Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), also opposes the treaty, but irritably fobs off suggestions from Senator Fred Prentice (Whit Bissel) that the military should take a more "active" role in opposing the president's plans. The constitution is sacred to Casey, as is the chain of command, and he assumes this feeling is universal throughout the military. A series of strange events, however, soon make Casey wonder if some of his fellow officers share that feeling, and before long he finds himself reluctantly confronting President Lyman with the seemingly fantastical idea that General Scott is planning a military overthrow of the government. The President is of course skeptical, but when his best friend, Senator Ray Clark (Edmond O'Brien) disappears while trying to locate a military base that no one seems to want to admit exists, Lyman's attitude changes. The President is desperate not only to abort the coup before it can take place, but to do so in a way in which the wider public, and the Soviet Union, never know of its existence. Unfortunately, he has few allies: Scott has the military leadership, an elite airborne unit led by a fanatical neo-fascist officer, the support of Prentice, and -- most importantly perhaps -- a Rush Limbaugh-style demagogue with a loyal audience of ten million, who plan to help him legitimize his coup. Lyman's hasty plans hinge on blackmail, in the form of Scott's embittered former mistress, Eleanor Holbrook (Ava Gardner), but Lyman may not have the stomach to stoop so low even with all the chips on the pass line. And yet me must find a way to stop Scott fast, because the day of the planned coup is fast approaching.
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY is a rare sort of film -- a military-political thriller that employs almost nothing in the way of violence or bloodshed. Everything which occurs does so in a single week, hence the title. The tension is achieved first through Casey's growing unease and suspicion (Kirk Douglas does a great job of acting with his face as he stumbles on some of the clues of the coup's existence), then by a plot twist which gives and then takes away the President's advantage over Scott, then by Clark's adventure in the desert (complete with capture, escape, and possible re-capture) and finally by a terrific all-dialogue confrontation between Scott and Lyman, during which March and Lancaster rise to sublime levels as actors. I confess I wanted to see just one scene in which the army of the plotters comes into conflict with soldiers loyal to the President (think the combat sequences in "Dr. Strangelove"), but such a sequence would have run contrary to the spirit of the film. The fact is, the talent pool on this film was very deep, and the direction by John Frankenheimer is crisp and assured, never flashy or distracting. To be perfectly honest, DAYS is one of those rare cases in which the film is better than the book upon which it was based, a novel by Fletcher Knebel whose tone was not appropriately serious enough for the subject matter. A lot of this falls at the feet of the great Rod Serling, whose screenplay is full of gems, including some great exchanges between Douglas and Gardner that would fit perfectly into a Film Noir movie ("I'll make you two promises: a very good steak, medium rare, and the truth, which is very rare.") It is possible to deliver a thriller with little physical action, but only if you have the right script, and the right actors to act it out.
We live in strange times, and the fact that SEVEN DAYS IN MAY has crept quietly into relevance again after 50-odd years is depressing and cause for anxiety. But it certainly makes an old black and white movie feel as relevant as today's news.
DON'T. It ruined a great script by trying to make it an action movie.