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of the characters, and none for the hero. Instead, the world that the James
Bond movies present is for the most part a parody of geopolitical realities
of the 1960s. There are dangerous enemies with cold, calculating plots in-
volving death and destruction. Bond is always a cool and sophisticated hero,
however, and he takes even the most outlandishly dangerous situations in
stride.
Shock and Upheaval 67
Indeed, Bond never seems very worried, even when repeatedly facing death.
By extension, it seems that if Bond doesn t worry, why should the audience?
For viewers, it was far more pleasant to bask in the scenery, the handsome and
beautiful people, and the good-natured banter, which Bond seems to muster
even when it appears he was about to die. In short, this fictional movie-
world was an escape from reality for viewers of the era. The Bond movies did
feature conspiracy, but it was conspiracy of a special type: cold, calculating,
but ultimately doomed to failure. It was not a picture of conspiracy that was
rooted in fear and paranoia. If anything, the ridiculous extremes in which the
conspiracies are shown suggests that global conspiracy was somewhat silly.
The Bond films continued to be popular after the death of the president,
but the context had changed. Indeed, the groundwork for more serious in-
carnations of the conspiracy theory theme in American culture became firmer
after 1963, even though more fanciful versions of the conspiracy continued
to appear on screen. Since the end of World War II, the anxieties of the
Cold War had been a wellspring for the imaginations of Hollywood writers
and directors. This resulted in conspiracy-themed productions across several
genres of moviemaking, ranging from relatively realistic dramas to thrillers to
science fiction. By the early 1960s, the fictional world of movies was coming
to terms, at least in part, with the often fantastical visions of conspiracy and
paranoia that had erupted in the 1950s.
Now, however, history had intervened. The assassination in November
1963 confronted the public with questions and anxieties. For some, it seemed
to be an increasingly plausible possibility that the dark dreams of the past
had played a part in John Kennedy s murder. Although that reading of the
assassination was downplayed by the Warren Commission, the context of the
times proved more powerful than denials from a presidential commission.
Uneasiness remained in the air, even though on the surface life had seemingly
returned to normal. The national trauma was a fertile breeding ground, rich
in suspicions and anxieties. It played a large part in fueling a long series of
conspiracy theories about that tragic event. Already by 1964, theories about
conspiracy and assassination set out on a trajectory of their own, on a path
that would prove to be unstoppable for decades to come. In the mid-1960s,
however, how the film industry would respond to the theme was not yet
known.
The stark contrast between the newer, almost flippant treatment of conspir-
acy theory in such movies as the James Bond series, and the real-world suspi-
cions prompted by the Kennedy assassination could not have been more strik-
ing. For example, as the saga continued in the second Bond film, Goldfinger,
the hero becomes involved in another far-fetched scheme by powerful, but
colorful, criminal conspirators. The escapist theme again provided audiences
with a glimpse into a dangerous world that did not really offer much real dan-
ger. In the meantime, however, a darker, more jarring picture of conspiracy
was being readied for release.
68 Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY
Director John Frankenheimer had popularized the idea of an American
assassin controlled by sinister foreign powers in his thriller The Manchurian
Candidate. Those themes remained available for cultural consumption and
transformation, and, indeed, the real-life assassination prompted fears along
those lines. The Warren Commission had taken special care to address the
question of foreign influences on Lee Harvey Oswald, the man they identified
as the lone killer.
In 1964, Frankenheimer issued another film with a conspiratorial theme,
Seven Days in May.2 This new movie possessed underlying premises that
were even more disturbing than the nightmarish brainwashing scheme in The
Manchurian Candidate. The new film located the enemy conspirators not in
the capital of some enemy nation, but rather, from within the heart of the
United States.
The story revolves around a plot by American military leaders to overthrow
the president and seize control of the United States government. To audi-
ences of 1964, the idea may have seemed very far-fetched. Importantly, then,
Frankenheimer s film helped introduce the theme of betrayal and conspir-
acy at the very highest levels of government into the mainstream. Indeed,
ideas that once may have seemed patently absurd are today not far from the
commonplace in conspiracy theory thinking. But in 1964 the basic premise
seemed unthinkable. Few Americans seriously believed that the American
way of life could face a greater threat from its own leaders than from real or
imagined external enemies.
In Seven Days in May, the American people are bitterly divided over an
agreement that the president of the United States, Jordan Lyman (played
by veteran actor Fredric March), has made with the Soviets with respect to
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