Seven Days in May is a political thriller novel written by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II and published in 1962. The novel was made into a motion picture in 1964, with screenplay by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. The story is said to have been influenced by the right-wing anti-Communist political activities of General Edwin A. Walker after he retired from the military. The author, Knebel, got the idea for the book after interviewing then Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay.
Plot
The plot centers on the fictitious U.S. President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March). As the story begins, Lyman faces a wave of public dissatisfaction with his decision to sign a treaty with the Soviet Union, an agreement that will supposedly result in both nations simultaneously destroying their nuclear weapons under mutual international inspection. This is extremely unpopular with both the President's opposition and the military, who believe the Soviets cannot be trusted.
As the debate over the treaty rages on, an alert and well-positioned Pentagon insider, United States Marine Corps Colonel Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas) becomes aware of a conspiracy among the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) led by his own superior officer, the charismatic head of the JCS, Air Force General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster). As he digs deeper, he uncovers the conspiracy's shocking goal: Scott and his cohorts, Colonel Broderick (John Larkin), Colonel Murdock (Richard Anderson), Gen. Hardesty (Tyler McVey), along with allies in the United States Congress led by Sen. Frederick Prentice (Whit Bissell) and influential members of the news media led by Harold McPherson (Hugh Marlowe), are plotting to stage a coup d'etat to remove President Lyman and his cabinet seven days hence.
The plot itself, called ECOMCON (for "Emergency Communications Control"), entails the seizure of the nation's telephone, radio and television network infrastructure by a secret United States Army combat unit created and controlled by Scott's conspiracy and based in Texas near Fort Bliss. Once this is done, General Scott and his conspirators will control the nation's communications assets; then, from their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called "Mount Thunder" (based on the actual continuity of government facility maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia), they will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of the treaty.
Although personally opposed to President Lyman and to the treaty, Casey is appalled by the unconstitutional cabal and alerts Lyman and his inner circle: Art Corwin (Bart Burns), Christopher Todd (George Macready), Paul Girard (Martin Balsam), Sen. Raymond Clark (Edmond O'Brien). As the countdown begins, both sides maneuver behind the scenes: Lyman sends Casey to New York to ferret out secrets that can be used against Scott, forcing Casey to cruelly deceive the general's former mistress, the vulnerable Ellie Holbrook (Ava Gardner). He then sends the aging, alcoholic Georgia senator Clark (Edmond O'Brien) to El Paso, Texas to see if he can locate the base.
Lyman also sends White House aide Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) to the Mediterranean to get the confession of Vice Admiral Farley C. Barnswell (John Houseman), an admiral who knows of the plot but decided not to participate in it (responding through a code involving the Preakness horse race). Girard gains the admiral's confession, but is killed when his plane crashes into a mountain in Spain on its way back to Washington.
Clark finds the secret base, meanwhile, but is taken captive. He ultimately persuades Colonel William "Mutt" Henderson (Andrew Duggan), a friend of Casey's stationed there, to help him escape. Clark makes it back safely to Washington, but his ally Henderson mysteriously vanishes at the airport.
President Lyman finds out about secret Air Force transports being flown to various cities from General Bernard "Barney" Rutkowski (Ferris Webster). He orders them grounded.
Lyman confronts Scott in the Oval Office, demanding that Scott submit his immediate resignation. Scott refuses, saying that everything that happened and is going to happen is the President's own fault. Lyman elects not to use the letters that incriminate the general. Scott's plan is to appear on all television and radio networks simultaneously to denounce the President, but Lyman holds a press conference where he demands the resignation of Scott and all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Scott demands everyone stay in line. Lyman, however, discovers the confession that Girard obtained has survived the crash. A copy is given to Scott and the other officers who were in on the plot. Scott's cohorts resign, and the plot of a military takeover is impossible now. The film ends with Lyman addressing the American people on the country's future.
Background
In the novel, the story is set in May 1974, not long after the conclusion of a stalemated war in Iran fought along conventional warfare lines similar to Korea (and which, unlike the actual Vietnam War, did not precipitate a major anti-war movement inside American society). The motion picture is set four years earlier, in May 1970, as shown both by the day/date indicator in the Pentagon, and the reference by Jordan Lyman to "a year and nine months" before Election Day 1972.
The novel has White House aide Paul Girard meeting with Vice Admiral Farley C. Barnswell, USN, on board the U.S. Sixth Fleet flagship, a 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower, at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. The U.S. Navy's third nuclear-powered supercarrier was the Nimitz class USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), which was actually commissioned in 1977.
The scenario of the film may have been inspired by the clash between General Curtis LeMay and President John F. Kennedy. It is suspected that LeMay, furious after the Cuban missile crisis for not being allowed to use his atomic bombs, talked to some of his staff about removing the President from power.
Other observers cite as the inspiration for the story a historically-ambiguous conspiracy among major industrial leaders to enlist retired Marine Gen. Smedley Butler in a plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as reported by Butler in his testimony to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee in 1934.[1] (See Business Plot of 1933.)
Production
Kirk Douglas and director John Frankenheimer were the moving force behind the filming of Seven Days in May; the film was produced through Douglas's Joel Productions. Douglas agreed to star in it, but he also wanted his frequent co-star Burt Lancaster to star in the film as well. This almost caused Frankenheimer to back out, since he and Lancaster had butted heads on The Birdman of Alcatraz several years before. Only Douglas's assurances that Lancaster would behave kept the director on the project.[2] Ironically, Lancaster and Frankenheimer became close friends during the filming, while Douglas and the director had a falling out.[3][4]
Some of the other actors had problems with Frankenheimer. Ava Gardner thought he favored the other actors over her, and Martin Balsam objected to his habit of shooting off pistols behind him during important scenes.[2]
Interiors for Seven Days in May were shot at the Paramount studios in Hollywood, and on location in Paris, France, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Arizona and in California's Imperial Valley.[5][6] In an example of guerrilla filmmaking, Frankenheimer photographed Martin Balsam being ferried out to the supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk, formerly CVA-63 (now CV-63), berthed at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego without prior Defense Department permission. He also wanted a shot of Kirk Douglas entering the Pentagon, but could not get permission because of security considerations, so he rigged a movie camera in a parked station wagon to photograph Douglas walking up to the Pentagon. Douglas actually received salutes from military personnel because he was wearing the uniform of a U.S. Marine Corps colonel.[7]
Getting permission near the White House was easier. Frankenheimer said that Pierre Salinger conveyed to him President Kennedy's wish that the film be made, "these were the days of General Walker" and, though the Pentagon did not want the film made, the President would conveniently arrange to visit Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House.[8]
Some efforts were made in the film to have the film appear to take place in the near future, for instance the use of the then-futuristic technology of video teleconferencing.
Seven Days in May premiered on 12 February 1964, appropriately in Washington, D.C.[9] It opened to good critical notices and audience response.[2]
Endings
According to Douglas, an alternate ending was shot, but discarded:
General Scott, the treacherous Burt Lancaster character, goes off in his sports car, and dies in a wreck. Was it an accident or suicide? Coming up out of the wreckage over the car radio is President Jordan Lyman's speech about the sanctity of the Constitution. Instead, the last time we see Burt is in his confrontation with me. He regards me as a traitor to him; I know he has been a traitor to the country. He says to me, "Do you know who Judas was?" I answer, "Yes. He's a man I used to work for and respect, until he disgraced the four stars on his uniform."[4]
The novel contains one extra scene where Todd warns Scott not to seek a Presidential nomination in the next elections, threatening to publish intimate papers which would destroy Scott's reputation and his marriage. The President, in his earlier confrontation with Scott, has chosen not to resort to this kind of blackmail; however, Todd laughingly tells Scott: "The President is a gentleman, I am a trial lawyer, a mean son of a bitch".
Cast
Cast notes
Accolades
Seven Days in May was nominated for two 1965 Academy Awards,[12] for Edmond O'Brien for "Best Actor in a Supporting Role", and for "Best Art Direction-Set Decoration/Black-and-White" for Cary Odell and Edward G. Boyle. In that year's Golden Globe Awards, O'Brien won for "Best Supporting Actor", while Frederic March, John Frankenheimer, and composer Jerry Goldsmith were nominated but did not win.
Frankenheimer won a Danish Bodil Award for directing the "Best Non-European Film", and Rod Serling was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for "Best Written American Drama."
In popular culture
"Riley" and "Deffenbaugh," the surnames of two of the Joint Chiefs in the conspiracy, were combined to form the name of the loan collection officer (only heard over the phone) in the 1996 Coen Brothers film "Fargo."
Remakes
The film was remade and updated in 1994 by HBO and renamed The Enemy Within with Sam Waterson as "President William Foster," Jason Robards as "General R. Pendleton Lloyd" and Forest Whitaker as "Colonel MacKenzie 'Mac' Casey." This particular version followed the plot of the original closely at times with some changes made for contemporary audiences and the end of the Cold War. However, the ending is changed and some incidents are omitted.
See also
Notes
- ^ Archer, Jules. The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR Telson USA, 2007. ASIN B0015T681A
- ^ a b c Jeff Stafford "Seven Days in May" (TCM article)
- ^ Frankenheimer, John and Champlin, Charles. John Frankenheimer : A Conversation Riverwood Press, 1995. ISBN 1880756137
- ^ a b Douglas, Kirk. The Ragman's Son New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
- ^ IMDB Filming Locations
- ^ TCM Notes
- ^ Pratley, Gerald. The Cinema of John Frankenheimer London: A. Zwemmer, 1969. ISBN 978-0302020005.
- ^ "Robert Kennedy and his Times", Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Futura Publications, p485, 1979, ISBN 0 7088 1633 9
- ^ TCM Overview
- ^ Seven Days in May at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ John Houseman at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ "NY Times: Seven Days in May". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/43837/Seven-Days-in-May/awards. Retrieved 2008-12-25.
External links
