The Manchurian Candidate

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Summary: "How about playing a little solitaire?"
Review: The Manchurian Candidate has obtained cult status among movie buffs.

Made in the height of the Cold War in the early '60's, The Machurian Candidate fits perfectly in that time-frame. There are heavy overtones of McCarthyism, as portrayed by James Gregory as a slimey Senator who has the presidency as a goal. However, the most ambitous of the characters is Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Iselin, who is the true driving force behind the man. It is interesting that Laurence Harvey, who plays Angela Lansbury's son, Raymond Shaw, was in reality only 3 years younger than she was. Frank Sinatra gives a good performance as Colonel Ben Marco, who surmises that something is "wrong" after Shaw wins the Medal of Honor, and Sinatra tells everyone how "wonderful" a person Shaw is, although he deep down knows that to be false. Marco finds out he shares the same dream/nightmare as another soldier in his squad which was captured in Korea.

Although the brainwashing technique portrayed in the film is pretty far-fetched, the presentation is stunning and one of the most memorable scenes in film. Other scenes have heavy symbolizm as well.

What does it all mean? You have to watch the film to find out.

The reasonably-priced DVD contains both full screen and wide screen versions of the Black-and-white movie, a good commentary by director Frankenheimer, a fair interview with Sinatra and producers Frankenheimer and Axlerod, trivia and production notes and a trailer. The upcoming special edition has 2 more interviews.

Truly a film that should not be missed. Frankenheimer's next film, "Seven Days in May", might even be better.

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Summary: Political Paranoid Thriller Extraordinaire!
Review: "The Manchurian Candidate" is a brilliantly-conceived indictment of the American political process wrapped around a riveting, heartbreaking thriller. Career-defining performances and a surprisingly witty, unsettling screenplay make this a film for the ages.

Sgt. Raymond Shaw (played with palpable disdain by Laurence Harvey) is thoroughly disliked by his entire unit in Korea . . . that is, until his unit gets nabbed by the North Koreans and subjected to eerie brainwashing techniques. We don't see the brainwashing, but we see the results in a famous scene where the unit sits politely in chairs in front of what they believe is a sewing circle but in actuality is a who's who of evil communist stereotypes (director John Frankenheimer masterfully cuts between real and imagined audiences, generating laughs as well as chills). A couple of horrifying murders are committed (poor, poor Eddie Lembeck!), foreshadowing the planned carnage to come.

Back in the States, Sgt. Shaw, winner of the Medal of Honor, refuses to be the political pawn of his mother (Angela Lansbury), who has remarried the fop Senator Iselin (James Gregory, in a masterful performance of boorish incompetence). Mrs. Iselin, bearing more than the usual motherly devotion to her son, is shocked to hear that Raymond wants nothing to do wtih Senator Iselin's career. Unfortunately for Raymond, he has no idea how much control Mother has over him.

Other members of Shaw's unit, who are robotically convinced that Sgt. Shaw is the best guy in the world, are having nightmares (these nightmares are how we see some of the brainwashing -- very effective). One, Major Ben Marco (Frank Sinatra, never better on film), is convinced that something is up, because he knows that he never liked Shaw, but that his brain is telling him otherwise. Initially dismissed as a fatigued loon by his superiors, he doggedly pursues his instincts and tracks down Shaw. Eventually, they become friends, and Marco learns that not everything is alright with Raymond after Raymond mindlessly walks into a lake in the middle of winter.

Raymond, too, has been brainwashed. In a powerful indictment of the power of political images, the queen in a deck of cards turns Raymond into a robot . . . a robot designed to bring the American political process to its knees. Senator Iselin, gaining popularity by making baseless charges of Communists in the State Department (in a wonderful scene, Mrs. Iselin deduces a way for Senator Iselin to remember the number of Communists using a certain steak sauce bottle).

The movie constantly unsettles the viewer. Ben Marco falls for a very unusual woman (Janet Leigh), whose unusual statements keep you wondering if she is a plant by the Communists to keep tabs on Ben. Repeated images of Abraham Lincoln dominate the picture (and you remember how he ended his presidency). And most heartbreaking, Raymond is forced to test the bounds of his brainwashing control against the people he loves most of all. The (near) absolute and total destruction of Raymond Shaw and all that he holds dear (by his mother, no less) is the emotional core of the film.

Shot in captivating black and white, "The Manchurian Candidate" is a thriller for the ages. Pulling few punches, "Candidate" will leave the audience breathless as the tension builds during the final scene at the political convention. It will also leave you aghast . . . this is the gold standard for political thrillers!

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Summary: I wanted to love this movie
Review: I wanted so badly to love this movie, and on some level, I do. My first viewing (on DVD since I didn't get to see it when it originally came out) wasn't the best experience. I got lost. Oh, I understood the basic plot and thought it was one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen, but I missed some things. On a second and third viewing, I STILL didn't get some of the connections. As I said, I got the main idea and thought this brilliant, but some of the writing failed to connect the dots. Even if you don't like every line/connection/piece of the plot, you have to like the acting. The ending will (sorry for the pun), blow you away. Can't wait for the remake.

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Summary: Political satire and thriller rolled into one
Review: "The Manchurian Candidate" was a product of its era that has managed to transcend the era that produced it. This political satire and thriller captures the sense of paranoia that existed in America during the 50's and early 60's. Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Angela Lansbury and James Gregory all give top notch performances in John Frankenheimer's classic film of Richard Condon's novel.

A platoon of soliders are betrayed by their military guide and captured by the North Koreans during the Korean War. Their subjected to mind control techniques to make one of them the perfect assassin. When they return home, the platoon's captain (Sinatra)begins having nightmares where his Sgt. Shaw (Harvey)kills two of his men in cold blood. In these dreams they are surrounded by the enemy in a lecture hall being conditioned for the mind control experiments. It's clear that the Sgt. has been conditioned to become a "sleeper" agent--impossible to detect because he doesn't know that he's now an agent for a foreign power. Additionally, Shaw's mother (Lansbury)uses the concerns over communists in the US government to launch her husband's (Gregory)bit to be put on the ticket for the vice-presidency.

This new edition comes with two featurettes. The first features director William Freidkin ("The French Connection", "The Exorcist", "To Live and Die in L.A.")in an appreciation of Frankenheimer's career. Freidkin discusses how "The Manchurian Candidate" broke with the conventions of political thrillers of the time. The second features 15 minute interview with Angela Lansbury about working on the film.

The animated menus is also new and the features from the first disc including Frakenheimer's marvelous commentary track are kept in tact. Do you need to upgrade to this new edition? Only if you didn't purchase the previous one. The previous edition had both the widescreen and full screen versions of the film and all the features here except the two previously mentioned featurettes.

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Summary: Edge of your seat visual stimulation
Review: This is one of those classic films where the remake can never match the groundbreaking visuals of the original. The dream-sequences alone make this film one of the creative masterpieces of filmmaking.

Mr. Sinatra is the tough but lovable and conscious-driven Captain out to uncover the truth no matter where it leads. It is, perhaps, his best movie ever. Mr. Harvey was perfect for the cold and calculating brainwashed killer. And Ms. Lansbury is unmatched as the domineering mother. Never can this tale be told so masterfully as with this cast and this director. It is a one of a kind gem awaiting discovery by a new generation.

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Summary: Excellent movie
Review: So was the remake, for a counterpoint to this movie see Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrik. Each movie illustrates how removing free will is truly a horrific undertaking.

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Summary: Extraordinary movie, disappointing commentary
Review: I don't think I can add much to the praise already heaped upon the movie itself except to say that all of it is richly deserved. It is one of the most brilliantly conceived, written and executed movies I have seen in a long time. I wish I had discovered it years ago. The acting is mostly top-notch, as is the lighting, set designs and editing. The dialogue, though wordy in spots, is always focused on manipulating the suspense and creating a reasonably believable situation (with one intriguing exception which may not be an exception at all, see below). The goal of the movie is not to keep you guessing at what is going on as much as it is to keep you guessing at how it will play out. This it does masterfully.

The only gripe I have is not with the movie but with the commentary supplied by the director, John Frankenheimer. Commentaries are often my favourite part of a DVD. Surely, in a movie of this complexity, there must be a thousand insightful and instructive stories but, for some reason, they mostly go untold. There are so many spots in the movie where you desperately want him to tell you something about the character or the actor or the difficulty in staging the shot or 'something' of interest but he says nothing of consequence or, more often, he says nothing at all. With about 20 minutes to go in the film, he finally gets into some informative details but by then it's too little, too late.

What I found most annoying was his virtual silence during the first scene between Janet Leigh and Sinatra where they trade off a long string of seemingly disconnected sentences. His only comment was that most people found this dialogue a little odd. Gee, no kidding! Taken at face value, the dialogue has ostensibly no bearing on the rest of the movie. In fact, if you listen carefully, every scene between these two have a number of apparently disjointed remarks. But we know that can't be right. The movie is too well-crafted to have random dialogue. So it has to be telling us something, something that is not resolved with the death of Raymond. I have my own ideas what the strange exchanges mean but I really wanted to hear from the director some idea of what he was striving for in these scenes. Just a hint. Anything. Throw us a bone here.

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Summary: Fascinating cold-war artifact
Review: The Manchurian Candidate (TMC) not just relic of that Un-War, though.

The movie is set in the era just after the Korean War, "now" at the time TMC was released. International communism loomed as the evil empire of the day, represented by the USSR, China, and North Korea in collusion. The idea of mind control also fascinated that time, psychiatry and brain-washing being two of its forms. All of these pieces come together in a suspenseful script: the lead character has been brain-washed as an obedient assassin, and further brainwashed so he doesn't know it himself.

TMC's plot builds well, with a few startling turns of script. Almost anything I could say would be a spoiler, so I must be a little vague here. One thing to watch for, though is the irony of the McCarthy character - the scriptwriter found the cleverest possible way to motivate that divisive, destructive character. Another point to watch is in the climactic scene, where the assassin loads the gun meant to kill one crucial man with one shot - count the bullets as he loads the gun.

The acting and the style of the movie look a little dated now, especially the fight scenes. All that is in keeping with the time in which TMC was made and the time it portrays. It's a well-made film, one of President Kennedy's favorites, and a strange foretelling of Kennedy's death soon after it was released.

//wiredweird

Rating:
Summary: Among the best films ever
Review: I would rate this film with a more generous 4½ stars but no such provision exists within the current ratings framework. While the real reason for the film's sudden withdrawal from release for many years can be debated, the result of such tardiness only serves to buttress the import of this superior political thriller. In many ways, this film serves as a warning to those who hold to the sanctity of the political process. Yet woven into the fabric of this facinating tale is an often subtle and biting satire. It is up to the viewer to separate possible fact from improbable fancy. What is wholly undeniable and documented for all to witness is that Angela Lansbury raised the bar of thespian excellence forever with her inspired portrayal of a sinister, incestious political mother yet we as a viewer remember that in real life Ms. Lansbury was only 1 year older than the late Laurence Harvey who expertly portrayed her flawed and tortured son. That kind of skillful acting comes from the depths of the very soul and may be nurtured along to some extent but certainly not everyone is born with that innate capacity. In addition, this film was easily among the best introspective works ever offered by Frank Sinatra. Highly, highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing Classic
Review: In many ways, director John Frankenheimer's 1962 film THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE could be considered the first modern political thriller, dealing as it does with the Cold War, the twin threats of Communism and Fascism, and much, much more.

Based on Richard Condon's 1959 novel, this masterpiece of suspense and savage political satire focuses on a decorated Korean war hero (Laurence Harvey) who is known for being a cold fish and being manipulated by his politically far-right wing mother (Angela Lansbury, in a performance FAR removed from "Murder She Wrote" and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST). But a fellow Korean war vet (Frank Sinatra) suspects, because of nightmares he's had, that Harvey may have been brainwashed while both of them were POWs on the Manchurian front. This leads to all sorts of political machinations, culminating in a climax that was so disturbing to Sinatra (because it had too many parallels to the real-life nightmare played out in Dallas in November 1963) that he had this film removed from circulation for almost a quarter century.

Indeed, time has been very good to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, despite the end of the Cold War and the recent, and very good, remake of it with Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep. Sinatra gives probably his best performance as an actor apart from the classic FROM HERE TO ETERNITY under Frankenheimer's incisive direction and George Axelrod's carefully crafted screenplay. Harvey does a very good job of playing an easily manipulated man; and Lansbury's performance, as mentioned, is absolutely savage. The chilling implications of brainwashing, humiliation, and political manipulation raised in this film are as important today as they were in the dark days of the Cold War and the anti-communist hysteria of those times, which makes THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE a disturbing classic.