Seven Days in May (1964)

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.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.

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. Ironically, Lancaster and Frankenheimer became close friends during the filming, while Douglas and the director had a falling out.

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.

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. 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

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.

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. It opened to good critical notices and audience response.