When Twilight's Last Gleaming was first released, its political message seemed bold but a bit backward for a post–Pentagon Papers audience. Now, however, Aldrich's radiant antiwar rant seems downright prophetic. Burt Lancaster plays General Dell, a rogue officer who survived five years as a POW in Vietnam. Cashiered from the ranks to silence him, Dell-along with several fugitives-seizes control of a Titan missile site with nine “birds” aimed at Russia. Armageddon is promised if the White House doesn't meet his demands: ten million bucks, Air Force One, and the release of NSC document #9759 disclosing the real reasons for the Vietnam War. Fitting neatly into the “loose cannon” canon along with Dr. Strangelove, The Hunt for Red October, and Seven Days in May, Aldrich's pulpy plaint fills the Oval Office with aged advisers who counsel the commander in chief (Charles Durning) that the country couldn't bear the truth. Ever insubordinate, Twilight's Last Gleaming is a countdown to conspiracy.