John Frankenheimers 1964 paranoia cinematic chess-game is one of the best films of its decade and, in some cases, a forgotten American classic. Populated with wall-to-wall great performances, led by Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, the film is set at the height of the cold war, where a weakened President and a popular four-star general face off in a battle for control of the US government. President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) has successfully negotiated an arms treaty with the Soviet Union, but this is an act of cowardice in the eyes of General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When one of Scotts men, Colonel Jiggs Casey (Kirk Douglas) discovers that senior military officers are plotting a coup to overthrow the president, he faces a race against time to form a group of reliable and loyal officials and get the evidence to President Lyman in time to stop Scott and the force he is building around himself. Inoffensively but pointlessly remade in 1994 as The Enemy Within, starring Forrest Whitaker and Jason Robards, Seven Days In May stands as one of the true greats in the conspiracy thriller genre.