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Directed by John Frankenheimer, this film teams with his masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate to form a potent one-two punch of Cold War paranoia. The earlier film, with Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, boasted a more complex plot and a layer of political satire that’s not found here. That doesn’t make Seven Days in May a lesser film, just a different one with different goals. Continue reading
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Back in the 1960s, there was a particular genre of movies comprised of big budget epics with large international casts. Their sudsy stories usually centered on some larger-than-life subject. Another prime example would Guy Hamilton’s Battle of Britain. This film shares a lot of DNA with the later war epic. Both films work best when focusing more on the machines than the people inside them. When Grand Prix is in its element, using director John Frankenheimer’s car mounted cameras on the real circuits of the Formula One racing season, the film is exciting and visually spectacular. When the characters get out of their cars, strip off their racing suits and start talking to each other, the film runs into trouble.
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The Manchurian Candidate has always been in a class by itself among cold war political thrillers. Maybe it was just the mystique that came with being unavailable for so many years, but maybe it was the simply fact that this is a damn good movie. Smart and laced with liberal doses of McCarthy-era satire, The Manchurian Candidate still stands as the pinnacle of John Frankenheimer‘s directing career.