Review of Seven Days in May (1964) by Allan C — 19 May 2012

Lancaster, Douglas & March, oh my! With stellar top-billers, a solid supporting cast, and a very accomplished director (John Frankenheimer) well versed in delivering on-screen suspense, this terse, tense thriller has always been a quiet favourite of mine.

Viewing it again reminded me if how war, however ugly and horrific it may be, creates scenarios tailor made to craft fictional tension. Made around the height of concern about the implications of the arms race the Cold War had produced, and made in the same year (1964) as two other excellent movie mediations on the same theme, Kubrick's "Dr.

Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" and Lumet's "Failsafe", it helps to highlight the difference between films of the last quarter century and those of eras that preceded them, namely that one doesn't have to resort to slam-bam visual effects & the actual depiction of the horror in question to achieve a chilling effect.

Well worth repeated viewings for no other reason, the renewed poignancy of the topic aside, than to catch some very fine actors under the tutelage of a director such as Frankenheimer with his long history of delivering the goods.