Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Eric266 While this movie doesn't quite have the tension of Fail Safe, it does have a great cast and the plot is engrossing and topical. The US has entered into a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets. This has led to President Lyman's (Frederick March) popularity plunging as most of the country sees him as weak. The war establishment, led by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Scott (Burt Lancaster), plot a military coup in seven days (hence the title). Kirk Douglas is Colonel Casey, staff aide to General Scott, who sniffs out the plot and alerts the president. A well rounded cast includes Martin Balsam, Edmond O'Brien, Andrew Duggan, Richard Anderson, John Houseman, and Ava Gardner as a former lover of General Scott who has some dirt on him the President's Men can use.The coup is revealed less than 30 minutes in to the movie. The remaining 90 minutes is a cat and mouse game between the President and his men and General Scott and his cohorts. They both try to one up each other using the media, the public, and the nuclear arms race. The tension never quite reaches the level of the aforementioned Fail Safe and that's a shame. This plot had so much potential and talent involved, but it never quite reached its zenith.Douglas' Casey discovers the plot a bit too easily. His evidence is pretty flimsy and for him to risk his career by going to the President and accusing the CJCS with only the information he had was a bit hard to take. Likewise, the plotters were extremely careless in their planning, pretty much leaving a blueprint of their plans for Casey to find. The last hour is pretty good. Watching the two teams chase each other around plot points and locations was well done. Casey having to betray his boss is handled in a professional and cautious manner, showing the character's struggle between following his boss and doing the right thing. What I really liked was how both sides were shown to be men of honor and were truly following what they thought to be right. Lancaster's General Scott comes off as the villain, but you can kind of understand his reasoning, the same way it was easy to understand General Hummel's in The Rock.A great film with some really great talent. Aside from a few plot holes, it was top-notch.

russedav I'd have rated this a 9 in terms of actual film craftsmanship (as in the days of the circumspect classic Olympics long gone I never give 10s) but the work's utterly arrogant left-wing self-righteous misrepresentation of military preparedness utterly oblivious to history made a 9 impossible. This film shows why many (though not enough) Americans are thoughtful independents eschewing the gross, arrogant hypocrisy of both left-wing and right-wing bigotry, each fingering the other in delusions of godhood without honestly confessing its own sins; 1 John 1:7-10. While it's obvious from history, especially America's great Founders' provision of the Second Amendment and our armed forces, that lethal force was necessary, as the Bible also says in Romans 13 "for he [=the ruler] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid; for he bears not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that does evil," that nevertheless does not prevent God from ordaining their overthrow (e.g. the American Revolution) when they overstep his appointed bounds. The only hope left-wing and right-wing have (an eagle needing both wings to fly) is the fear of God that alone can sustain their understanding of their need one for the other (1 Corinthians 12). Modern godless secularism, even in the days of the making of this unreal fantasy of a film, is wholly insufficient for the task, something America's Founders understood in their stern, God-fearing warning of the certain fatality for the nation of such an abomination, as it's proved to be, the opening riot of the film being a far more accurate picture of what would have been than the actual ending.

robert-temple-1 The making of this film enjoyed the special protection of President John Kennedy, who personally allowed filming for it within the White House. Kennedy evidently feared a coup attempt of some kind by 'the Deep State' or 'the Military Industrial Complex' (Eisenhower's phrase) and wished the public to be warned about such things. However, he did not live long enough to see this film, since 'they' got him before it was released. It was filmed during 1963 and bears that copyright date on the print, but the release was in 1964, after Kennedy's assassination. His fears were all too justified, though in a rather different form. The film portrays an attempt to stage a military coup in America, which would appoint the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an air force general played with relentless and laser-like intensity by Burt Lancaster, as a new leader for the country. The film bears an uncanny resemblance in many ways to what is happening now, in 2017. Of course, the film got it wrong. The threat was never from the military, but rather from the security agencies. Soldiers do what they are told, security agencies do not tell what they do. They can 'classify' anything, since they hold sole power of 'classification'. Hence they can never be properly scrutinised, and true accountability becomes impossible. They can 'classify' their way out of anything. All they have to do is mention the words 'national security' in a low voice, and everyone trembles and bows down, not least the congressional intelligence committees, whose scrutiny is effectively meaningless. Here we find a liberal President, played to perfection by the dignified and noble Frederick March, whose public approval rating has fallen to 29%, who is hated by the extreme conservative factions, portrayed by a ranting senator and all the chiefs of staff. The names 'Democrat' and 'Republican' are never mentioned in the film. Lancaster's aide is a colonel, played with upright dignity by Kirk Douglas. He has been excluded from the coup plot because he is too 'straight' and actually likes the Constitution. When he begins to realize what is going on, he goes to the President and warns him. That is seven days before the scheduled coup, hence the title of the film. The main themes that are reminiscent of today are that the President is 'too friendly with Russia' and hence 'must be impeached'. The film shows impeachment protest marches and hysteria about being a Russia-lover. This is exactly what is going on at the moment in the real world, and it is 54 years later. The irony is that in the film the President is a liberal, whereas today the situation is opposite in that sense. But the same claims are made, the same hysteria aroused, and the same demands of impeachment resound throughout the land. But instead of the military wanting to stage a coup with soldiers, the soft coup attempt which is currently in progress requires no guns, only highly selective leaks and 'unmasking'. And it is not the Pentagon which is behind it, but the 'Deep State', a phrase nowadays used to describe the unaccountable security agencies and their even more unaccountable sub-contractors. The story is a real thriller, because things get worse and worse and it seems impossible to stop Burt Lancaster. He has created a secret base known as 'Site Y' 50 miles north of El Paso which has a secret army ready to seize the key locations for a military coup on the following Sunday. The President's best friend, a senator played by Edmond O'Brien, is held captive there when he tries to investigate. His other best friend and aide, played by Martin Balsam, is murdered in a plane crash. How can this coup be stopped? Rod Serling has a written taut thriller script which has us guessing right up until the end. It is based on a novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II. John Frankenheimer has done his usual excellent job of directing this menacing film, which is in black and white by the way. Ava Gardner is her usual siren self as the lover of Lancaster, but who also makes bedroom eyes at Kirk Douglas. The intrigues are complex and suspenseful. This is an edge of the seat film, and that seat has still not been vacated. Russia-mania is still in full flow 28 years after the Iron Curtain came down. Some security agencies just cannot do without enemies, lest they all lose their jobs and the opportunities to pillage public funds through their unaccountable black budgets. Any enemy will do, but Russia is so convenient, as it has the additional advantage of being old and familiar to all. After all, Russia has that one precious asset so necessary also in the film business and in politics: 'name recognition'.

kijii This was the fifth of Frankenheimer's great black and white movies from the 1960s. Based on a novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey and a screenplay by Rod Serling, it may have seemed like an unlikely cautionary tale at the time. The movie was released when the Cold War was at its height and the John Birch Society was making itself felt by calling into question the patriotism of such main-stream political figures as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Earl Warren. Joseph McCarthy's accusations were still fresh in the public memory, and Barry Goldwater was running for president under the slogan: 'Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!..Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.'When this movie was made, the idea that a cadre of high government officials could secretly act in such a blatantly illegal fashion may have been thought a stretch—before Watergate. The idea that the US government could actually have a shadow government running affairs was thought preposterous—before Iran-Contra. And, the idea of engineering the impeachment of a president—as was suggested in the movie---still meant something important and had great dramatic effect—before Clinton was impeached. Such was the background of riveting plot of this great political thriller.As the movie opens, the president's Gallop poll is at an all time low (29%); the people are restless because President Jordan Lyman--note the similarity between the fictitious president's name and that of Lyndon Johnson--(Fredric March) is about to sign an agreement with the Soviets to ban nuclear weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), and his deputy, Col. Martin 'Jiggs' Casey (Kirk Douglas) are testifying before a contentious and polarized Senate committee about the wisdom of the upcoming agreement. General Scott is totally in disagreement with the president's plan for mutual disarmament with the Soviets and, as he makes his points, he is 'stealing the show' with the help of his backers on the committee. Shortly after this hearing, Jiggs begins to pick up irregularities with Scott, both at a political speech that Scott gives and at the Pentagon where there are code-like communications about a horse race the following Sunday. As he puts several facts together including a scrap of paper with cryptic notes about ECONCOM (some acronym with which he is not familiar), he starts to imagine that Scott is planning a military coup to take over the government on the following Sunday. With Scott out of town, he meets with the president and his skeptical aide, Paul Girard (Martin Balsam), at the White House and lays out his suspicions point by point.Once the president is convinced of the possible coup, he and some of his most trusted people launch a counter-attack against the possible coup by gathering more information and throwing up barriers in front of Scott's possible plans. Ellie Holbrook (Ava Gardner) is Jiggs friend and Scott's former girlfriend. Her love letters from Scott to her may hold clues necessary to understanding Scott's ideas and plans, and it is Jiggs' unattractive duty to get them from her. The alcoholic Georgia senator, Raymond Clark (Edmond O'Brien), is assigned to find the phantom military base in Texas where ECONCOM may be holding its secret maneuvers. The high-stakes cat-and-mouse maneuvering and counter-maneuvering of the two sides is a race against time that may control the country's future. The movie's suggestive use of military snare drums and timpani serves to heighten the tension of drama as it unfolds.The casting is very good here, with Lancaster as the square jawed military champion of a hawkish public, Douglas as his aid and partner— dedicated to the military but cautious enough to understand the possible overreach of its power. While in the latter part of his career, Fredric March played the less glorious role of Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind (1960), his resounding scolding of Burt Lancaster, in this movie is something to behold and cheer. March's last film performance was that of Harry Hope in John Frankenheimer's version of Eugene O'Neill's play, The Iceman Cometh (1973).