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Classics from the vault: John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate
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When you think of scary movies, generally horror movies or thrillers come to mind – movies like Psycho or The Exorcist which shock the audience through the visceral impact of the images on the screen. But then there are scary movies that are frightening on an intellectual level, which shock purely through the concepts presented by the filmmakers. The Manchurian Candidate, although it contains some superb scenes of suspense, clearly belongs to the latter category.
Released by United Artists in 1962 (and unfortunately remade by Jonathan Demme in 2004), The Manchurian Candidate was based on the novel by Richard Condon and was directed by John Frankenheimer, who made his name in television and small-scale feature films before breaking into the big leagues with the claustrophobic Burt Lancaster prison epic Birdman of Alcatraz..jpg)
Frank Sinatra (in a career performance) and Laurence Harvey play Bennett Marco and Raymond Shaw, members of a platoon of soldiers who are captured during the Korean War and subjected to prolonged brainwashing. Marco returns to stateside duty but has recurring nightmares which eventually lead to a medical leave of absence. For Raymond it’s much worse; he’s been programmed by the Communists to kill on command, with the queen of diamonds in a deck of cards serving as the trigger for his acts of assassination.
The brainwashing scenes are marvelously handled, using a 360° pan and rotating sets which effectively convey the states of mind of the brainwashed captives who think they are sitting in on a women’s garden club meeting. The soldiers are programmed to believe that Raymond is “the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life,” although in fact he’s a cold, mechanical stuffed shirt who’s a perfect choice for a trained assassin.
He’s also the stepson of Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), the “Manchurian Candidate,” whom the Communists plan to use as a political puppet after Raymond assassinates the party’s presidential candidate. Iselin is a thinly veiled caricature of Joseph McCarthy, the conservative senator who led the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s. The film’s point, it would seem, is that the political far right and far left ultimately merge and that fascism and extreme communism are ultimately two sides of the same evil coin.
Amazingly, the film was released in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, despite its obvert political overtones. Hollywood legend maintains that the film was withdrawn entirely from distribution after the JFK assassination, although in fact it was shown sporadically on television before being reissued in 1988. But it’s hard not to admit that the conspiracy theories which continue to swirl around the Kennedy assassination give the film’s political paranoia an even more chilling plausibility.
If you’ve never seen the original The Manchurian Candidate before, you’re in for quite a treat. But be warned: you’ll never look at the game of solitaire the same again.
The Manchurian Candidate airs Monday, July 6 at 8:00 am ET on Turner Classic Movies.
A clip from the film: "Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?"
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