Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 2-December-07
Spoiler Rating: High

Seven Days in May (1964)

I recently watched Oliver Stone's "JFK" for the first time, and with that and John Frankenheimer's "Seven Days in May" I have lost all confidence in the security of the American government. Not that my confidence has been solid of late, but these films, one born from fact and the other from fiction, suggest that the worm of corruption was alive and well before I ever came on the scene. As indeed any honest thinker will admit: no nation or political system is capable of existing in pure or even impure form for long.

Of these two films, "Seven Days in May" is more optimistic in that the defenders of peace and the democratic process do not end up assassinated or discredited. Following a scene of protesters rioting outside the White House (which, incidentally, John F. Kennedy reportedly okayed), the movie sets sail upon the broad shoulders of Navy colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), the affable right-hand man to General James Mattoon Scott, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Burt Lancaster). Through his many friendly connections, Jiggs gets wind of a secret base outside El Paso which is somehow involved with a defensive exercise to which the president has been invited alone, without members of Congress or the press. The thing smells fishy to Jiggs, particularly when set against the president's vastly unpopular disarmament treaty with Russia and General Scott's rising prominence as a demagogue dead set against any concessions to the Red Menace. As soon as he collects a scrap of evidence, Jiggs reports his suspicions to the president himself (Fredric March), who, over the opposition of his advisors, takes the possibility of a coup seriously and launches an investigation.

A tricky game ensues as the Oval Office tries to amass proof and thwart the plot before its scheduled execution just days away. As the president's spokesman (Martin Balsam) flies to Gibraltar to lean on an admiral, and a loyal senator (Edmond O'Brien) heads to Texas to find the mysterious base, Jiggs performs the unfortunate task of hitting up General Scott's former mistress (Ava Gardner) for potentially damaging information. This is difficult because Jiggs wants to hit on her as well, and his personal and political actions get confused. In the meantime the general — who, it goes without saying, is a megalomaniac fond of spewing patriotic platitudes and references to the Bible — steels his forces to repel the enemy even to the point of mass murder. He cloaks his egotism behind a shroud of righteousness which, it also goes without saying, plenty of people are just as turned on by as himself.

In the final showdown between the president and the general (in which both March and Lancaster distinguish themselves), luck figures equally with the power of the elected champion of the Constitution. The happy ending is welcomed but not exactly comforting. It is bone-chilling, really, to consider how close we might have been to an overt military takeover at any point since this "great experiment" began and what chance meetings or decisions separate any organized country from chaos.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.