Seven Days in May

Frankenheimer's political thriller, and the plot is a coup: the chairman of the Joint Chiefs regards the president's nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets as treason and prepares to remove the administration. The man who spots the plan is the general's own aide. It was made in the tensest years of the cold war and its subject was genuinely delicate at the time. The White House made filming easier for them, and a presidency assisting a film about the possibility of a coup says something about the period on its own. The strength of the telling is that the plotter is not drawn as a madman. General Scott defends his reasoning openly, and the argument proceeds as two men talking about the constitution. Burt Lancaster plays the general, Kirk Douglas the aide and Fredric March the president. Rod Serling wrote the script. Black and white, driven by dialogue and almost entirely interior. One of the genre's classics for anyone who likes American political thrillers, and a quiet film for anyone expecting action.