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suggestion, figuring that the president must not have much evidence, since
nothing concrete has yet been presented.
In the midst of this confrontation, however, the president receives dramatic
news: the missing evidence has been located. The arrogant Scott refuses to
70 Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics
back down, however. Now overcome with what appears to be advanced mega-
lomania, he announces to the president that the population would greatly
prefer him anyway and that it is only a matter of time before he will lead the
nation to stronger, better days. But it is too late for the general. His allies
have abandoned him and the general is left lacking the means to fulfill his
plan. He leaves in defeat.
The president is happy to have broken up the conspiracy, of course, but
he takes little pleasure in his victory. In one of the film s most interesting
twists, he concludes that the public should never know how close the U.S.
government had come to being overthrown by a military plot. In these dan-
gerous times, he reasoned, it would be unwise to give the public any reason to
doubt the strength and vigor of the U.S. Constitution, lest their confidence
be hopelessly undermined.
SevenDays inMay shows how a fiendish conspiracy to depose the elected
American president is thwarted. What is more, this is followed with a new
conspiracy of sorts admittedly more benign to implement a massive cover-
up, making sure that the true events never became known. According to the
president s reasoning in the film, knowledge of the conspiracy and its near-
success would so rattle the nation that awareness of it could damage public
confidence and, in a way, pose a new peril to society. It was better, he claimed,
to keep the entire matter secret.
The secrecy-cloaked ending to the story is an odd facet to a story that
extols constitutional values. In retrospect, it is all the more remarkable since
it provides early evidence in American popular culture for an impulse that
would, within a matter of a few years, take firm hold in American society. This
is the suggestion that leaders cannot be counted upon to be forthcoming with
information and that the unsuspecting public can expect to be manipulated
through the careful selection of what knowledge is made known by officials.
Though in the story the president s decision to maintain secrecy is presented
as a relatively innocuous example of this impulse, SevenDays inMay is one of
the earliest high-profile venues in which the idea is presented to mainstream
America at all. And so even though the president and his men are successful
in thwarting a plot against the constitutional democracy, even the heroes of
the story see nothing inherently objectionable to withholding information
that a viewer might reasonably assume was a vital piece of American history.
An implicit suggestion seems to be that the known, revealed history of the
nation may be only a part of the story and that other significant parts remain
hidden.
With this film, Frankenheimer pushed the general theme of conspiracy
more prominently into the foreground, continuing with ideas he explored in
The Manchurian Candidate. As he further explored the theme, it underwent
a significant transformation. The fear and paranoia of conspiracy no longer
emerges from hostile foreign enemies, but rather from within the nation.
By placing the heart of the plot deep within the most central institutions
Shock and Upheaval 71
of the United States in the very institutions with which Americans entrust
their security Frankenheimer suggests that the enemy to be feared may
not only be the external enemy, or even others within American society.
Instead, the film implies that Americans may be their own enemy. Although
the implications of the finale may have been missed by many members of the
original audience, in hindsight it is clear that the narrative reveals that even
victories may conceal the truth. With secretive villains and with heroes that
fear what the truth would do to America, it is clear that trust is a relative
concept. The upshot is that Seven Days in May slyly introduces a cynical
interpretation of an American society that, on the surface, looks to be sound
and secure.
Seven Days in May is, in almost all respects, a film equal or superior to
the director s more well-known film The Manchurian Candidate. In terms
of acting, the fine performances of Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, and sev-
eral other cast members provided a firm foundation for the psychologically
thrilling story of the earlier film. Still, the performances in Seven Days in May,
especially from leads Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, were modulated and
nuanced in ways that fleshed out the personalities of the main protagonists.
Lancaster was particularly convincing in his portrayal of Gen. Scott, a man
overtaken by megalomania.3 In a part that other actors might have been
tempted to overplay, Lancaster s version of Scott was as a man who saw none
of his own, sizeable failings and inconsistencies. By playing the scheming gen-
eral as a man in a disarmingly straightforward manner, Lancaster contributed
to the film s success in suggesting that conspiracies are not necessarily far
away and deeply hidden. As with Scott, who regularly appeared in the media
and was, therefore, in plain sight, Seven Days in May shows how a conspiracy
can be closer than we might think.
Frankenheimer s fine directing and the cast s strong performances certainly
worked in the film s favor. Another person s contributions to its success
cannot be overlooked, however that of the film s scriptwriter, the legendary
Rod Serling.
CONSPIRACY IN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY TELEVISION
Like Frankenheimer, Serling had worked in the nascent television industry
during the 1950s. He had risen to prominence on the strength of his ample
writing abilities. At the same time, he had frequently been frustrated by tele-
vision s constraints specifically by the limitations imposed by the networks
censorship practices of the 1950s regarding politics. A smart, insightful writer,
Serling was interested in addressing issues of the day within the context of
his scripts, but he found that it was quite difficult to get network approval for
even mild references to political topics.
Undeterred, Serling eventually adopted an approach that allowed for com-
mentary on such topics; he draped the issues under the cloak of science fiction
72 Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics
and fantasy. This indirect strategy allowed him to explore serious contempo-
rary themes without unduly raising the ire of network censors.
The result of Serling s exploration of storytelling within science fiction and
fantasy forms was the well-known anthology series, The Twilight Zone. It
appeared on the CBS schedule in 1959 and continued with first-run episodes
until 1964. Appearing on camera as narrator, Serling introduced every episode
of the series, which featured modern-day parables with endings that usually [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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