The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate - 1962

Director: John Frankenheimer
Writer: George Axelrod
Players: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh
IMDB #120 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056218/]

The Gist:
Big cold war paranoia film, complete with mock up of Joseph McCartney and bad Asian stereotypes and poor Frank Sinatra sweating nervously through most of the movie. The story is about soldiers who are abducted during the Korean War who all get hypnotized in order to concoct some bullshit story about one of their own, Raymond Shaw, beating a battalion of Korean soldiers single handedly, or something of the like, just so that he can get the congressional medal of honor. Then, having established high standing in society, he is used to give his father credibility (note: his father is the McCartney mock up) for a vice presidential campaign and then used as a zombie hypnotized assassin to help him eventually become president. Only his father is a drunken buffoon and his mother is one pulling the strings, and she has some vague Communist agenda going on. And Frank Sinatra's in there too and he spends most of the time looking nervous and beating up Asian man servants and unexplainably winning the affections of Janet Leigh just by being Frank Sinatra. Sounds convoluted, no?

Why It's Kind of Cool:
It picks up on this weird unconscious fear of communism that was obviously very prevalent at the time. The idea that someone could be, on the surface, normal and yet underneath there is this insidious thing waiting to unmask itself. Something innocuous, like solitaire, unlocks the hypnotized cold blooded communist assassin who perpetrates acts that would destroy Raymond Shaw if he ever had any recollection. These are powerful underlying sentiments about the red scare culture. Also Laurence Harvey kills in this movie, he is perfect. As the movie progresses and his two states of consciousness start to merge he plays it just right, becoming the most believable character in the story. Also the movie has good pacing and is for the most part very engaging as a kind of thriller.

Why It Could Be Better:
Some of the story was just terrible. Really large leaps in narrative logic, like Janet Leigh deciding that she's in love with Frank Sinatra and leaves her fiance based on Frank jittering around like a heroin addict and mostly ignoring her oddly persistent advances. And then they're in love, almost immediately. It was annoying and poorly written. Also the shift from Frank Sinatra's fall from grace in the military back to something of a promotion and heading the case against Raymond Shaw was barely passed over. Poorly written again. However most of the writing was pretty good and the flashback with Shaw and his bird was a particularly nice touch, giving emotional weight to the rest of the film.