The Manchurian Candidate

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Mix R Man, Angela Lansbury! Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 09/29/24 Full Review Jeff U I am talking about the second movie version of the Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. The acting was brilliant. The plot was very engaging though I thought it could have had a stronger ending. The reason that I only gave it three stars was because I was looking for a movie which was true to the book instead of basically a made-up version where an American Corporation and American mother were the villains instead of the Chinese and Russians. Therefore, I downgraded my rating because this movie was hardly true to the book and an alternate version wasn't what I was looking for. Disappointed me. I'll go watch the earlier version now. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 08/29/24 Full Review Tony T Yes the 2004 version was a masterpiece with Meryl Streep, Denzel, Liev as well and a great cast. Astounding to watch wow class Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/13/24 Full Review nick s An interesting premise. I found it took a while to get going. My interest was really waning half way through, especially with all the aimless dream sequences. But it finished well. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 10/31/23 Full Review Matthew B Few movie directors have devoted as much time to putting conspiracies on screen as John Frankenheimer, whose career peaked in the 1960s. Frankenheimer's films often involve an individual or small group of people desperately seeking to take on a faceless organisation that is more powerful than they are. The chances of defeating the conspiracy seem overwhelming, and any victory that is attained is hard-won and at great cost. In The Manchurian Candidate, Frankenheimer's best work, it is the armies who are the heroes, and the politicians who are to be feared. John Frankenheimer was able to take advantage of a newfound hostility and suspicion towards government that was beginning to spread through nations across the world, and which has remained to this day. The Manchurian candidate is John Iselin (James Gregory), a weak and buffoonish politician with a drink problem and a sinister, controlling wife (Angela Lansbury). The Iselins have a hatred for communism that is just as irrational as that of the McCarthyites, and probably more dangerous since their veiled intention is use the communist scare to instigate a fascist takeover of the White House. This makes Isselin's bid for power even scarier. This mixture of buffoonery and dangerous demagoguery is one that has become familiar in our own time, and the idea that an idiot like Johnny Iselin might one day become President of the United States no longer looks far-fetched. The movie opens with a pre-credits sequence set during America's intervention in North Korea. A platoon of soldiers including Major Bennet Marco (Frank Sinatra) and Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) are captured by the enemy and their bodies are taken and flown out of the country. The situation has abruptly changed after the opening credits. Now the soldiers have made it home. The men escaped with only the loss of two of their number, and the hero is Raymond Shaw. He is receiving a Medal of Honor, and two of his colleagues describe him in eerily identical words: "Raymond Shaw is the bravest, kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known". All this in spite of the fact that the men seemed to despise ‘Saint Raymond' in the pre-credit sequence. What is going on? Raymond Shaw is not brave, kind or warm. He is a repellent man, sarcastic and cynical, and with a slavish attitude towards authority figures. When Marco expresses his real opinion of Raymond, it is very different: "It isn't as if Raymond's hard to like. He's impossible to like! In fact, he's probably one of the most repulsive human beings I've ever known in my whole…life." By the end of the movie Marco will relent a little and feel sorry for "Poor friendless Raymond." All is not as it seems, and soon some of the men who returned from the platoon begin to have bizarre nightmares, including Marco. In Marco's dream, he and the soldiers are sitting in a Lady's Garden Club listening to demure ladies discussing flowers. The camera rotates woozily around the room. As it turns the respectable old dears are replaced by sinister men in military uniforms and dark glasses. The hotel lobby turns into a lecture theatre with pictures of dictators around the walls. In fact Raymond has become an unconscious sleeper agent for the communists. Due to being unaware of his actions, he can kill people without guilt or fear because he has no memory. While under their influence, he is a willing automaton, unemotionally polite , even to the victims he kills. The trigger for his control is the card game, solitaire. Raymond must play the game when requested, and the Queen of Hearts is the card that puts him totally under the spell of his masters. Needless to say, the Queen of Hearts is a symbol for his terrible mother. As brainwashing plays an important part in his movie, John Frankenheimer uses a number of camera effects to give the movie a disorienting feel. People speak in the foreground while other actions take place behind them. Some of the shots are taken with hand-held cameras. Other shots are tilted or filmed at odd angles. Some of the other visuals in the movie may be serendipitous accidents – the shot of Major Marco slightly out of focus when he seeks to de-programme Raymond, or the perspiration on the two leading actors' brows in the later parts of the movie. The Manchurian Candidate would seem to be targeting both sides of the political spectrum. Where then does the movie stand? Is it attacking the right wing or the left wing? The answer is both and neither. The real enemy in the story is not moderate conservatives such as Holborn Gaines or kind liberals such as Thomas Jordan. It is those on left or right who seek total control over others and perform appalling deeds in order to gain domination. In that sense, there is a meeting place between the malevolent communists and the hateful Iselins who wish to exercise the same despotic powers. The Manchurian Candidate is a superior political thriller and one of the best espionage stories ever made. It provided a barometer for growing cynicism about the establishment, and did what all the best movies should do – capture something of the hopes and fears of the age in which it was made. I wrote a longer appreciation (with spoilers) on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/06/30/the-manchurian-candidate-1962/ Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/30/23 Full Review Joshua V This is my goto movie when I'm having trouble falling asleep, the half drugged acting really helps on those sleepless nights. Murder she wrote steals every scene, Heinz 57=57 communists congress members. 😀 Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Manchurian Candidate

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