The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
December 13, 2015 by wondersinthedark
by Allan Fish
A little solitaire?
Note: This review is part of the Frank Sinatra Blogathon run by Judy Geater and two others. The host site is Emily at The VintageCameo.com.
p Howard W.Koch d John Frankenheimer w George Axelrod novel Richard Condon ph Lionel Lindon ed Ferris Webster m David Amram art Richard Sylbert cos Moss Mabry
Frank Sinatra (Bennett Marco), Laurence Harvey (Raymond Shaw), Janet Leigh (Rosie), James Gregory (Sen.John Iselin), Angela Lansbury (Mrs Iselin), Henry Silva (Chunjim), John McGiver (Sen.Thomas Jordan), Knigh Dhiegh (Yen Lo), Whit Bissell,
The Manchurian Candidate is the film Oliver Stone would love to have made but never could, a film that subtly and nail-bitingly exposes the hypocrisy of political machination and the often blurred distinction between the so called ‘left’ and ‘right’. Frankenheimer made several classic conspiracy movies in the sixties (see Seven Days in May and Seconds), but this is undoubtedly his masterpiece and one of the all-time great political films. Not merely a thriller, not merely a military exposé, Candidate is also just what Pauline Kael said it was; “the most sophisticated political satire ever to come out of Hollywood.”
In 1952 in Korea, an officer, Raymond Shaw, saves his group of men on patrol and receives the Medal of Honor for bravery. All his former subordinates refer to him in an uncommonly generous, adulating way that seems detached from his gloomy, introspective personality. Bennett Marco, who has been having nightmares about a brainwashing program conducted by the Soviet and Chinese governments, comes to believe his dream and thinks that Raymond is not all he says he is. It turns out that he is merely an instrument in the machinations of some truly diabolical master plan.
Frankenheimer (like Alan J.Pakula, his seventies equivalent) knew that to get maximum audience involvement the film must seem like a nightmare in itself. Raymond Shaw is right when he says of himself “I am not lovable” but he is eminently pitiable and, at heart, a good man. To him happiness is from another world and, thus, when we see him happy, it seems as if it’s from a different movie. Bitten by a snake, a young blonde attends to his wound but needs something to wrap around it. Seeing nothing else she murmurs “oh well” and removes her blouse to show her strapless bra underneath. Then, nonchalantly, she rides off for help like a character in a sunny Eric Rohmer comedy. There’s a humour in this, a very dark humour but a humour nonetheless. It also surfaces in the nightmarish flashbacks, with the human guinea pigs believing themselves addressing a women’s horticultural society, in an unintentionally funny fight between Marco and Raymond’s Chinese valet (obviously copied by Clouseau and Cato in the Pink Panther movies) and, best of all, in a hilarious scene with Lansbury and Gregory at breakfast. Idiotic senator Gregory wants his wife to give him an exact number of active communists in the Defence department for his upcoming speech. Seeing him douse his meat in Heinz ketchup, we cut to the speech – “there are exactly fifty-seven…”
The film was withdrawn in the seventies by Sinatra in respect of what happened in Dallas in 1963. Like many other films so withdrawn by one of the creative artists (such as Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), it achieved a cult status that has only grown with time. For this we must not only congratulate Frankenheimer and writer Axelrod, but his superb cast. Sinatra was never better as Marco, with a memorable homage to his early career by first showing him sweating in his bed having a nightmare, recalling his cold turkey sequence inThe Man With the Golden Arm. Harvey, too, was never better than as the tragic Raymond, and Gregory, McGiver and Dhiegh are all memorable in support. Yet it’s Lansbury you remember, the dowager empress of the modern Disney empire playing the sort of woman to give Margaret Thatcher the heebie-jeebies, a Clytemnestra or Agrippina for our time, an anti-Communist who is anything but. When Harvey says “my mother is a terrible, terrible woman”, you’d better believe it. Yet it’s Harvey’s Ray who perhaps aptly gets the best line, while drunk on Christmas Eve; “twelve days of Christmas. One day of Christmas is loathsome enough.” Thank you, Ebenezer.
Excellent consideration of a film I’ve largely forgotten. Must be time for a rewatch.
In behalf of Allan many thanks for that Duane.
I could rave about this film all day. Like you said, it has a great cast but Angela Lansbury is most memorable.
I’ve seen this film nearly half a dozen times, but you’ve given me some things to consider the next time I see it – thanks!
In behalf of Allan many thanks for that great response my friend.
Certainly one of the best reviews of this film I have ever read.
I’ve also seen it a bunch of times but never made the connection with Heinz ketchup. Hilarious.
Thanks for stopping in crimsonkay.
Interesting connection between Sinatra’s nightmare here and ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’ – he definitely gives another great performance in this one, though, as you say, Lansbury’s part is extremely memorable. Thanks very much for your contribution to the blogathon.
Thanks for your understanding over my own lamentable foul-up Judy. I am still red-faced over my failure to complete a review of KINGS GO FORTH, but Allan’s review of the classic THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is excellent.