Oct 4th
Seven Days in May***         
(National Film Theatre)        

(US 1963)

In 1970 an aide to a senior USAF general discovers that he is secretly leading a plot to overthrow the pacifist President.
Gripping political thriller in the wake of the Manchurian Candidate and the then still recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite the futuristic setting it could not be more relevant (then or now), and although made on a restrained but well used budget consisting more of words than deeds, it has a first class collection of participants.

Written by: Rod Serling, from the novel by Fletcher Knebel, Charles W. Bailey II.
Producer: Edward Lewis.
Director: John Frankenheimer.
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Fredric March, Edmond O'Brien, Martin Balsam, Hugh Marlowe, Whit Bissel, Richard Anderson, John Houseman.
Photography: Ellsworth Fredericks.
Music: Jerry Goldsmith.

+ preceded by and introduction for the Blue Plaque Association and the Ava Gardner Trust by Cathy Power, Ty Jeffries, including Our Film Diary (GB 1955. 2m. bw. silent; ph: Lionel Jeffries; s: Ava Gardner, Ty Jeffries, Francis Matthews, Lionel Jeffries, others in home movie footage.)