James Hitchcock
Under what circumstances could the United States armed forces legitimately overthrow an elected President? The strictly constitutional answer is, presumably, "never", but if one regards the question as a matter of ethics rather than of constitutional law, the answer is not so clear-cut. What, for example, if the President were planning an unprovoked nuclear attack on a foreign country? Might not Americans conclude that, compared to death in a nuclear holocaust, life under a military junta would be the lesser of two evils?Jordan Lyman, the fictional President in this film, is not threatening to unleash nuclear war, but in the eyes of his critics is doing something potentially equally disastrous. He has negotiated a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union under which both countries will give up all nuclear weapons. The American political Right are outraged, believing that the Soviets are not to be trusted, and place their hopes in General James Mattoon Scott, the Air Force Chief of Staff, who is known to be opposed to the treaty. Colonel "Jiggs" Casey, an officer on the Pentagon staff, discovers a plot by Scott and some of his colleagues to seize control of the government by force and alerts the President. The film then follows the attempts of Lyman and a small group of trusted political advisers to thwart the conspiracy.The film was made in 1963 and scheduled for release in December of that year, but this was delayed until the following year because of the assassination of President Kennedy in November. ("Dr Strangelove" suffered a similar fate). It was made in black-and-white at a time when colour was fast becoming the rule, at least in America. I think, however, that monochrome was the right choice here. Director John Frankenheimer was aiming for a claustrophobic look, with most scenes taking place indoors or at night, often in airless underground rooms. Even when we know that a particular room must have windows, they most often remain invisible. The use of colour rather than black-and-white would have weakened this claustrophobic effect, which is heightened by the harsh, driving, urgent musical score.The subplot featuring Ava Gardner as General Scott's former mistress seems unnecessary; perhaps the financial backers insisted on a big-name female star. Edmond O'Brien was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actor" Academy Awards as the dipsomaniac Senator Clark, a key ally of Lyman, which always amazes me as I felt O'Brien overacted monstrously. It also seemed odd that Lyman should have trusted Clark so implicitly, even if the two men were personal friends, as drunkards are not normally noted for their discretion. There are, however, fine performances from Fredric March as Lyman, a decent, ineffectual-seeming liberal who proves more effective than he looks, and Martin Balsam as Paul Girard, another key presidential aide.The key performance, however, comes from Burt Lancaster as Scott. Given his own left-wing views, it would have been easy for him to overplay the General as a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth caricature. Lancaster was later to play such characters in films like "The Cassandra Crossing" and "Executive Action", but here he refuses to allow his politics to overcome his artistic judgement, with the result that "Seven Days in May" is a far better film than those two.Instead, Lancaster plays Scott not as a power-crazed lunatic but as frighteningly sane and frighteningly sincere. In his view Lyman's policies constitute a terrifying threat to national security and world peace, and since Congress backs those policies his only option is to think the unthinkable. Lancaster doubtless realised that to have portrayed Scott in any other way would have turned the film into a piece of reverse McCarthyism, a piece of blackshirts-under-the-beds paranoia inviting the Left to see all conservatives as sinister Fascist plotters.Of course, March's Lyman is equally sane and equally sincere in his pacifist views. So who is correct, Lyman or Scott? The astonishing answer is that we do not know. We only see the controversial treaty from the American side. We see nothing of the Soviets, so have no idea if they intend to honour the treaty they have just signed, to hold a few missiles in reserve to blackmail the West, or to launch a conventional war once the Western nuclear deterrent has been removed. We do not know whether the failure of Scott's attempted coup has saved the world- or condemned it to those very horrors which Lyman hoped to avoid.Another piece of ambiguity surrounds Lyman himself. Like Casey, who agrees with Scott politically but believes a coup is the wrong way of going about things, he is the representative in the film of a strict constitutionalism and the rule of law. Yet he does not order the arrest of Scott and his fellow-conspirators or attempt to have them put on trial, and it is never really explained why a President who supposedly stands for the rule of law is content to allow men guilty of attempted treason to escape into an honourable retirement; the possibility is even left open that Scott might run for President himself. (An alternative ending, with Scott dying in a car crash, was apparently rejected). "Seven Days in May" of course reflects the values of the Cold War which produced it. Yet, unlike some political thrillers from the sixties and seventies, it remains more than just a period piece, and not just because recent events in the Ukraine have raised the spectre of a new Cold War. It is the film's very ambiguity which brings home one of the central paradoxes of the post-war world, a paradox which remains despite the fall of Communism. The existence of nuclear weapons is a potent source of danger to the world. But any attempt to divest ourselves of such weapons might lead to even greater dangers. It is a film about an insoluble dilemma- and has the honesty to admit it is insoluble. 7/10
