Serling-scripted film, discussion at Forum
Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin, August 14, 2008

If you're looking for something to do tonight, consider this: There's a free movie at 7 p.m. at the Broome County Forum Theatre -- a very good film with a screenplay by Binghamton's own Rod Serling -- and a discussion afterward about Serling and the film.

"Seven Days in May" is a first-rate drama from the Cold War era (1964) with a first-rate cast, including Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Frederick March. It concerns an attempted military coup of the U.S. government.

It's in black and white and there are no special effects or high-speed chases. But the film is suspenseful, sometimes frightening, and the dialog crackles -- thanks to Serling, who never achieved the prominence in films that he earned as a television playwright and creator of "The Twilight Zone," but did excellent work in this adaptation of a novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey.

The Serling touch is obvious when the fictional president describes the "enemy" he's facing: "The enemy's an age -- a nuclear age. It happens to have killed man's faith in his ability to influence what happens to him. And out of this comes a sickness, and out of sickness a frustration, a feeling of impotence, helplessness, weakness. And from this, this desperation, we look for a champion in red, white and blue. Every now and then, a man on a white horse rides by, and we appoint him to be our personal god for the duration."

The Cold War has long since ended, but the themes explored in the film -- the definition of patriotism, especially, but also the question of disarmament in a dangerous world -- remain salient today.

After the film, the audience can take part in a "talk-back" discussion about the film and Serling with Barbara Audet, journalism professor at Ithaca College, and Gary Ingraham of Cornell University's Educational Television Center.
The movie is part of the Binghamton Summer Film series of free movies for the community.