The Manchurian Candidate (15.)
Directed by John Frankenheimer.
Starring Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, John Gregory and Frank Silva. 125 mins. Released on blu-ray by Arrow Films.
For a man who was the greatest popular vocalist of the 20th century, Frank Sinatra was a pretty decent movie star. Of course, if he hadn't been the greatest popular vocalist of the 20th century, he probably wouldn't have been invited to try his hand at being a film star but as a straight actor he had a very endearing quality, something like an American Sid James. The Manchurian Candidate is pretty much Sinatra's film. It was his enthusiasm for the project that got it made in the first place and it was his ability to get his mate President Kennedy to interject on its behalf that prevented the studio from burying it. Yet you sit down to watch it today and I bet most people's reaction is Oh, is Sinatra in it? I completely forgot.
The Manchurian Candidate is a film that people remember for the good bits, which is to say the outlandish bits. They remember Angela Lansbury as the Lady Macbeth of the US Congress; Laurence Harvey as the brainwashed assassin; the lady in the giant Queen of Hearts costume; the dream sequences where the soldiers remember being brainwashed while imagining they are at a Ladies' Garden Group lecture on hydrangeas; the tremendous climatic sequence at a presidential convention; the way it both harks back to the era of McCarthyism and presages the age of political assassination. To balance out the wacky satirical elements there is a conventional heroic narrative, the hero acting to solve the mystery and prevent the crime and it is largely on this side of the movie that Sinatra stalks.
The plot, taken from Richard Condon's novel, is genuinely out there. During the Korean War, a troop of American soldiers are taken prisoners by the Soviets, brainwashed for three days, and then let go with the cover story that their leader, Sergeant Richard Shaw (Harvey) had heroically rescued them all. Shaw returns to the States with a Medal of Valour, but is in fact a sleeper assassin, programmed to respond to any suggestion made after the Queen of Diamonds appears during a game of solitaire. He is also the stepson of the McCarthyite Senator Iselin (Gregory) who, under the manipulative control of his wife (Lansbury) is busy drumming up a reds-under-the-beds scare that is intended to take him to the White House. Meanwhile, the other members of the platoon, such as Major Marco (Sinatra) are tormented by nightmares of what happened to them during the three missing days.
The Manchurian Candidate has retained its influence for over 50 years, but it's a strange one: every time you catch up with it, it is both a little less and a little more than you remember it being. It has wonders scattered across its two-hour-plus running time but it does rather amble and lurch through those two 126 minutes. To a modern sensibility many of the films from that period seem a little slow but even given that, there are times when The Manchurian Candidate can be frustratingly aimless.
Also, even though the piece is written as a wild satire, it stretches credibility to the limit. I mean of all the soldiers to choose as a sleeper assassin, why would you choose the son of a national political figure, then make him a medal of Valour winner so he becomes that bit more conspicuous, and then ask him to surreptitiously kill people?
So, it perhaps isn't quite the masterpiece of popular memory but it is still a vital and remarkable film.
Extras.
A director's commentary from Frankenheimer of the on-the-day-we-shot-this-scene-we-did-this variety.
An hour long posthumous appreciation of Frankenheimer's career made by the American Film Institute.
Three interviews. Frankenheimer, Sinatra and screenwriter George Axelrod reminisce about the film in 1988 for seven minutes.
A 15 minute Angela Lansbury interview
Best of all is a 15 minute appreciation of the film by Exorcist/ French Connection director William Friedkin.
Directed by John Frankenheimer.
Starring Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, John Gregory and Frank Silva. 125 mins. Released on blu-ray by Arrow Films.
For a man who was the greatest popular vocalist of the 20th century, Frank Sinatra was a pretty decent movie star. Of course, if he hadn't been the greatest popular vocalist of the 20th century, he probably wouldn't have been invited to try his hand at being a film star but as a straight actor he had a very endearing quality, something like an American Sid James. The Manchurian Candidate is pretty much Sinatra's film. It was his enthusiasm for the project that got it made in the first place and it was his ability to get his mate President Kennedy to interject on its behalf that prevented the studio from burying it. Yet you sit down to watch it today and I bet most people's reaction is Oh, is Sinatra in it? I completely forgot.
The Manchurian Candidate is a film that people remember for the good bits, which is to say the outlandish bits. They remember Angela Lansbury as the Lady Macbeth of the US Congress; Laurence Harvey as the brainwashed assassin; the lady in the giant Queen of Hearts costume; the dream sequences where the soldiers remember being brainwashed while imagining they are at a Ladies' Garden Group lecture on hydrangeas; the tremendous climatic sequence at a presidential convention; the way it both harks back to the era of McCarthyism and presages the age of political assassination. To balance out the wacky satirical elements there is a conventional heroic narrative, the hero acting to solve the mystery and prevent the crime and it is largely on this side of the movie that Sinatra stalks.
The plot, taken from Richard Condon's novel, is genuinely out there. During the Korean War, a troop of American soldiers are taken prisoners by the Soviets, brainwashed for three days, and then let go with the cover story that their leader, Sergeant Richard Shaw (Harvey) had heroically rescued them all. Shaw returns to the States with a Medal of Valour, but is in fact a sleeper assassin, programmed to respond to any suggestion made after the Queen of Diamonds appears during a game of solitaire. He is also the stepson of the McCarthyite Senator Iselin (Gregory) who, under the manipulative control of his wife (Lansbury) is busy drumming up a reds-under-the-beds scare that is intended to take him to the White House. Meanwhile, the other members of the platoon, such as Major Marco (Sinatra) are tormented by nightmares of what happened to them during the three missing days.
The Manchurian Candidate has retained its influence for over 50 years, but it's a strange one: every time you catch up with it, it is both a little less and a little more than you remember it being. It has wonders scattered across its two-hour-plus running time but it does rather amble and lurch through those two 126 minutes. To a modern sensibility many of the films from that period seem a little slow but even given that, there are times when The Manchurian Candidate can be frustratingly aimless.
Also, even though the piece is written as a wild satire, it stretches credibility to the limit. I mean of all the soldiers to choose as a sleeper assassin, why would you choose the son of a national political figure, then make him a medal of Valour winner so he becomes that bit more conspicuous, and then ask him to surreptitiously kill people?
So, it perhaps isn't quite the masterpiece of popular memory but it is still a vital and remarkable film.
Extras.
A director's commentary from Frankenheimer of the on-the-day-we-shot-this-scene-we-did-this variety.
An hour long posthumous appreciation of Frankenheimer's career made by the American Film Institute.
Three interviews. Frankenheimer, Sinatra and screenwriter George Axelrod reminisce about the film in 1988 for seven minutes.
A 15 minute Angela Lansbury interview
Best of all is a 15 minute appreciation of the film by Exorcist/ French Connection director William Friedkin.
