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Manchurian Candidate The (1962)

Manchurian Candidate The (1962)

Directed and co-produced by John Frankenheimer with a screenplay by George Axelrod (Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)) that was based on the novel by Richard Condon this essential political thriller stars Frank Sinatra Laurence Harvey Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury (among others). Notable for Lansbury’s evil mother portrayal (AFI’s #12 villain) the film was voted the #67 Greatest Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute appears #17 AFI’s 100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies list and was added to the National Film Registry in 1994. Lansbury received the last of her three unrewarded Supporting Actress Academy Award nominations; the movie’s Editing was also Oscar nominated.

Harvey plays Korean War hero Raymond Shaw who’s returned to the United States where his emasculating mother (Lansbury) and his stepfather Senator John Iselin (James Gregory) who’s running for President turn his medal of honor ceremony into a political rally. But something is not right Shaw’s commanding officer Bennett Marco (Sinatra who’s character has met Leigh’s on a train) keeps having a recurring nightmare about what happened while he and his unit which included Shaw were prisoners of war in North Korea. It turns out they’d been brainwashed and Shaw’s been programmed to assassinate his stepfather’s opponent for the nomination. John McGiver plays another Senator who figures in the intrigue which includes the Queen of Diamonds (and Lansbury’s character) and is quite compelling. The pace quickens as Marco gets permission to try and find out (and hopefully prevent) whatever Shaw’s supposed to do and the climactic ending features a surprise twist.

The fact that this drama was released the year before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination makes it all the more chilling today.

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