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FILM REVIEW: The Manchurian Candidate
By TADHG CURTIN
A sensational thriller becomes eerily prescient in John Frankenheimer’s haunting, superb and surprisingly modern The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
When it comes to art and real life overlapping, I can’t think of a work of art that embodies this notion more than The Manchurian Candidate. Based on a 1959 novel by Richard Condon and released in October 1962, it is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family, Raymond Shaw (Lawrence Harvey), a soldier in the Korean War who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. In November 1963, thirteen months after Manchurian’s release, the 35th President of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. His alleged assassin; Lee Harvey Oswald, a soldier in the US marines with connections to the communist Soviet Union.
The movies title has even entered everyday speech as shorthand for a brainwashed sleeper, a subject who has been hypnotized and instructed to act when his controllers pull the psychological trigger. Having not seen it in years, what struck me rewatching it is how it’s surprisingly modern despite its age. Frankenheimer uses experimental photography and editing to implement effects that add to its nightmarish quality. Just bask in the brilliant execution of the New Jersey garden club sequence. The acting all round is fantastic. I’ve underestimated Frank Sinatra as an actor in the past but I think this is one of his best performances. Lawrence Harvey is great as well. Others have said that they never bought him as an American soldier but I feel this adds to his alien quality amongst his troop. Janet Leigh is underused but is great with what she’s given to do. As for Angela Lansbury, she’s amazing as the mother from hell; Elenor Iselin. You’ll recognise her as the genial Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote. However, here she relishes the chance to play an absolute monster. She plays a woman who is willing to sacrifice her son’s safety to bring down a country’s democracy (the movie even suggests an incestuous relationship between mother and son which is more apparent in the novel). In fact, so good a role was the mother that when Sinatra told his friend, President John F. Kennedy, that they were making it into a movie. Kennedy’s response was to ask; “Who’s playing the mother?”
In the wake of JFK’s death, Frank Sinatra had it pulled from circulation for over 20 years. It’s only recently that modern audiences are discovering this stone cold classic. Jonathan Demme helmed a really solid remake in 2004 starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep but this is the one to start with. Manchurian endures as a creepy, classic thriller. Just be wary the next time someone asks you to play a game of cards. The queen of diamonds may cause you more problems than a just bad hand.
