Twilight’s Last Gleaming

Gonzo auteur Robert Aldrich channels post-Vietnam disillusionment into a subversive, anti-establishment political thriller. Burt Lancaster is the rogue ex-Air Force general who, aided by three escaped convicts, infiltrates a Montana army base and gains control of nine nuclear ICBMs. His demand: that the U.S. President go public with a classified document revealing government knowledge that the war in Vietnam was an unwinnable sham. It’s an explosive set-up delivered with stomach-knotting tension—amplified by the effective use of split screens (up to four at a time)—and a righteous, dissident fury. Golden-age leading men Richard Widmark, Joseph Cotten, and Melvyn Douglas lend support.