rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1962
Directed by John Frankenheimer; produced by George Axelrod, John Frankenheimer; screenplay by George Axelrod
Starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
The first thing I thought about after watching 'The Manchurian Candidate'
was how new it still feels. While watching the movie I didn't realized one
single time I was watching a classic because of this freshness.
We start in Korea, 1952, and see how a platoon is captured by the Chinese
army. In this platoon we have Robert Shaw (Laurence Harvey) and Ben Marco
(Frank Sinatra). The complete platoon is brainwashed and Shaw seems to be
their main target. When he is ordered to kill two of the members of his own
platoon he does so without hesitating. This is a great sequence. The platoon
is send back to the US and Shaw can still be ordered to kill someone by his
controller.
His stepfather John Iselin (James Gregory) is a senator for the Republican
party and his mother (Angela Lansbury) supports this with everything she
has. Iselin even wants to be the candidate for a presidential nomination, or
actually Shaw's mother wants that.
In the meanwhile Marco has nightmares about what happens during the
brainwashing. Are these images the truth? He reports the nightmares to his
superiors and at first they don't buy it, but slowly they start to believe
it as well. Marco contacts Shaw and he seems pretty normal although he does
some strange things.
The love interest for Marco is Rosie (Janet Leigh) and for Shaw it is Jocie
(Leslie Parrish). With the Leigh character things are suggested. Their first
conversation in a train is very strange. May be she just wants to be funny,
or may be Marco is also a killer for the Chinese and Leigh is his
controller. It gives the movie an extra level and something to think about.
The movie is sometimes funny, very exciting with enough suspense, with good
performances and a great story. The ending is the only right one for this
movie. A great American classic.