Seven Days in May, A 1960s Thriller

THE 1960s PERIOD was such a huge scare almost all the time.  The other night I watched the interesting John Frankenheimer-directed film, 'Seven Days in May' and it was quite a vigorous tour de force as the canny pundits might say.  This movie has to do with a wry plot to make gigantic difficulty take place and the good guys are hard to figure out in this slick cinematic recipe.  There is a heady mix of fine acting in this big, brazen film.  Burt Lancaster is the strong, Gen. James Mattoon Scott, Kirk Douglas is the wry, Col. Martin  "Jiggs" Caseyband and Ava Gardner is the sensuous, Eleanor Holbrook.  The 1960s had so much confusion as a constant bit of filmic thematic material.  The underlying vile jumpiness in this big old film is the fear of a sneak attack.  The mean vicious hunks of 1960s living put many of us on edge as we remember and contemplate all the sordid aspects that were then and still are a part of contemporary roughhouse geopolitics.