"'Seven Days in May' is an almost perfect thriller"—such was the opinion I was about to set down when my conscience intervened; the wary cravenness of that "almost" struck me as patently unjust, for, in fact, there wasn't a single moment of this high-flown melodrama that I didn't enjoy, or a single aspect of it that I would have liked to see changed, and gratitude alone should suffice to make one generously incautious. With a sense, therefore, of having provided no handy trapdoor of qualification through which to escape, let me paint myself into the tight corner of total praise: "Seven Days in May" is a perfect specimen of its kind….

[The] plot of the picture,… like that of any good thriller, is far easier to admire than to describe, mounting in ever more dangerous spirals of intrigue to a climax that had me not only on...