The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

I am fascinated how the entertainment industry sometimes through art and their desire to entertain, somehow foresees future occurrences or as in the case with John Frankenheimer’s, “The Manchurian Candidate”, sets up a conspiracy theory for an event that had not yet occurred.   Only a year after it was released, President Kennedy was assassinated and the Manchurian Candidate conspiracy theory was created.    The premise of the film is a straight forward spy thriller.  A small platoon of American soldiers during the Korean War are taken prisoner and brainwashed.  One of them, “The so called candidate”, is set up to get close to and eventually assassinate the President of the United States.   Lawrence Harvey plays staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw who is the brainwasher’s prime target.  The surviving members of the platoon are returned to their unit, believing that they single handedly defeated an enemy encampment.  Shaw is portrayed as the hero who led them to victory and is awarded the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of the rest of his Platoon.   His heroic stature allows him to receive a distinguished position with a major newspaper.   His social position that will allow him to get close to the President is driven by his influential mother who is married to a idiotic right wing demagogue, clearly designed to represent the real life demagogue, Senator McCarthy.  It is pure irony, since this character played by James Gregory acts as a puppet for the communists while clearly representing the right wing McCarthyism in a story that represents the exact type of scenario that the anti-communists and Senator McCarthy were warning about.   We are shown a nightmare scenario of an attempted communist takeover, run by crazy people who in real life were trying to warn us of just such a scenario.  It is a brilliant and biting satiric statement on the political climate of the time that is somehow still relevant today.  Foreign cultural takeover has now replaced communism but these right wing extremists are still with us.   The great singer Frank Sinatra is the major star of the movie and plays Major Bennett Marco, who was the commanding officer of the Platoon and who was also brainwashed.  He is shown as having nightmares that result in his growing suspicions regarding what actually happened to his platoon.   The movie has him meeting and falling in love with a strange out of nowhere women played by Janet Leigh.  Why did this character almost force herself onto Major Marco?   It is possible that the producers needed a love interest to satisfy their bosses, but I felt that there was more to her character then meets the eye and the nefarious plot of the film just strengthened these convictions.   It is however the character of Shaw’s dominating, conniving mother who steals every scene she is in.  Angela Lansbury gives an outstanding performance as the right wing puller of strings and the conniving ruthless villain.  What I loved the most about her character was her complex depth as portrayed by Lansbury.  Her love for her son is real, although not the healthy mother to son type of love.   Frankenheimer was one of Hollywood’s most underrated directors and his attention to details and use of deep focus close ups added to the claustrophobic paranoid feel of the story.   The brainwashing scenes with their constant smooth jumps from reality to imagined reality are brilliant.   The acting is first rate throughout with even Sinatra giving a convincing performance.   “The Manchurian Candidate” is one of Cinema’s great political thrillers that never seems to age and stays relevant in its power and message.