The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)

The Manchurian Candidate is a 1962 American neo noir psychological political thriller film about the Cold War and sleeper agents. It was directed and produced by John Frankenheimer. The screenplay was written by George Axelrod and was based on the 1959 Richard Condon novel The Manchurian Candidate. The film's leading actors are Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh, with Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva and James Gregory in supporting roles.[4]

This article is about the original 1962 film. For the 2004 remake, see The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film).
The Manchurian Candidate
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn Frankenheimer
Produced by
Screenplay byGeorge Axelrod
Based onThe Manchurian Candidate
by Richard Condon
Starring
Narrated byPaul Frees[1]
Music byDavid Amram
CinematographyLionel Lindon
Edited byFerris Webster
Production
company
M.C. Productions
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • October 24, 1962 (1962-10-24)
Running time
126 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2.2 million[2]
Box office$7.7 million[3]

The plot centers on the Korean War veteran Raymond Shaw, the progeny of a prominent political family. Shaw was a prisoner of war during the conflict in Korea and while being held was brainwashed by his captors. After his discharge back into civilian life, he becomes an unwitting assassin involved in an international communist conspiracy. Officials from China and the Soviet Union employ Shaw as a sleeper agent in an attempt to subvert and take over the United States government.

The film was released in the United States on October 24, 1962, at the height of U.S.–Soviet hostility during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was well-received by critics and was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Lansbury) and Best Editing. It was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

During the Korean War, the Soviets and Chinese capture a U.S. Army platoon and take the men to Manchuria in communist China. Three days later, Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) and Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) return to UN lines. Upon Marco's recommendation, Shaw is awarded the Medal of Honor for saving their lives in combat. Shaw returns to the United States to a hero's welcome where he is exploited by his ambitious mother, Mrs. Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury), to further her husband's (Shaw's stepfather) U.S. Senator John Yerkes Iselin's (James Gregory) political career. When asked to describe him, Marco and the other soldiers automatically respond that, "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." In fact, Shaw is a cold, sad, unsympathetic loner.

In the following years, Marco, since promoted to major and assigned to Army Intelligence, suffers from a recurring nightmare. In it, a hypnotized Shaw blithely and brutally murders the two missing soldiers before an assembly of military leaders from the communist nations, during a practical demonstration of a revolutionary brainwashing technique. Marco is compelled to investigate, but with no solid evidence to back his claims, fails to receive his superiors' support. However, Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon, Allen Melvin (James Edwards), has had the same nightmare. When Melvin and Marco separately identify photos of the same two men from their dreams who are leading figures in communist governments, Army Intelligence agrees to help Marco investigate.

Shaw (Harvey, left) with Major Marco (Sinatra) after having jumped into a lake in New York City's Central Park when his programming was accidentally triggered

Meanwhile, Eleanor drives the ascension of Iselin, a McCarthy-like demagogue stirring domestic turmoil and climbing the political ladder based on claims that constantly varying numbers of communists work within the Department of Defense. Shaw, who broke with his mother and step-father immediately upon his return to America, is gradually revealed to have been programmed by Russian and Chinese communists as a sleeper agent who will blindly obey orders without any memory of his actions. His heroism was a false memory implanted in the platoon during their brainwashing in Manchuria. His programming is triggered by seeing the Queen of Diamonds card while playing solitaire after being induced by his handlers.

Several years pass before Shaw finds happiness when he rekindles a youthful romance with Jocelyn Jordan (Leslie Parrish), the daughter of liberal Senator Thomas Jordan (John McGiver), one of his stepfather's political rivals. Mrs. Iselin had previously broken up the relationship, but now facilitates the couple's reunion to garner Jordan's support for Iselin's bid for the Vice Presidency. Although pleased with the match, Jordan states he will block all of Iselin's to seek their party's nomination. Jocelyn, wearing a Queen of Diamonds costume at a party for her thrown by the Iselins, inadvertently triggers Shaw's programming and elopes with him. In response to the senator's rebuff, Mrs. Iselin, who is revealed to be Shaw's American handler, triggers him to kill Jordan at his home, shooting Jocelyn as well when she enters the scene. Afterwards, Shaw has no knowledge of his actions and is grief-stricken upon learning of the murders.

Eventually discovering the card's role in Shaw's conditioning, Marco uses a forced deck in an attempt to deprogram him and reveal his next assignment, which appears imminent. Mrs. Iselin primes her son to assassinate their party's presidential nominee at the height of the ongoing political convention so that Senator Iselin, as the vice-presidential candidate, will become the nominee by default. In the uproar, he will immediately seek emergency powers that when elected will, in Mrs. Iselin's words, "make martial law seem like anarchy". Mrs. Iselin tells Shaw that while she had requested a programmed assassin for the task, she never knew it would be her own son, who was selected by the communists in order to bind her more closely to their cause. Kissing Shaw on the lips, she vows that once in power she will exact revenge for her son's selection as an assassin.

Shaw enters the convention hall disguised as a priest and takes up a sniper's position high in its farthest reaches. Alarmed by Shaw's failure to call by the appointed time, Marco and his supervisor, Colonel Milt (Douglas Henderson), race to the hall to find and stop him. When the moment to shoot comes, Shaw instead kills his mother and Senator Iselin. When Marco arrives an instant later, Shaw tells him he failed to call to prevent anyone from interfering with his change in plans. Shaw then fatally turns the rifle on himself.

In an epilogue, Marco and Eugénie privately mourn Shaw's death. Marco reads citations for two Medal of Honor winners, and composes his own:

"Made to commit acts too unspeakable to be cited here by an enemy who had captured his mind and his soul, he freed himself at last and in the end, heroically and unhesitatingly gave his life to save his country: Raymond Shaw."

Cast

Production

For the role of Mrs. Iselin, Sinatra suggested Lucille Ball, but Frankenheimer, who had worked with Lansbury in All Fall Down, countered with her,[5] insisting Sinatra watch her in that film before a final choice was made. Although Lansbury played Raymond Shaw's mother, she was in fact only three years older than Laurence Harvey, who played Raymond Shaw. An early scene in which Shaw, recently decorated with the Medal of Honor, argues with his parents was filmed in Sinatra's own private plane.[5]

Janet Leigh plays Marco's love interest. In a short biography of Leigh broadcast on Turner Classic Movies, actress Jamie Lee Curtis reveals her mother had been served divorce papers on behalf of her father, actor Tony Curtis, the morning of the scene where she and Sinatra first meet on a train.

In a scene where Marco attempts to deprogram Shaw in a hotel room opposite the convention, Sinatra is at times slightly out of focus. It was a first take, and Sinatra failed to be as effective in subsequent retakes, a common factor in his film performances. In the end, Frankenheimer elected to use the original. Critics subsequently praised him for showing Marco from Shaw's distorted point of view.[5]

In the novel Mrs. Iselin had been sexually abused by her father as a child. Before the dramatic climax, she uses her son's brainwashing to have sex with him. Concerned with blowback over even a reference to such a taboo topic as incest in a mainstream motion picture of the time, the filmmakers instead opted for Mrs. Iselin to simply kiss Shaw on the lips to imply her incestuous attraction to him.[5]

Nearly half of the film's production budget of $2.2 million went on Sinatra's salary for his performance.

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Manchurian Candidate holds an approval rating of 96% rating based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 8.66/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A classic blend of satire and political thriller that was uncomfortably prescient in its own time, The Manchurian Candidate remains distressingly relevant today."[6] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 94 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[7]

Film critic Roger Ebert listed The Manchurian Candidate on his "Great Movies" list, declaring that it is "inventive and frisky, takes enormous chances with the audience, and plays not like a 'classic' but as a work as alive and smart as when it was first released".[8]

Awards and honors
Award Category Nominee(s) Result
Academy Awards Best Supporting Actress Angela Lansbury Nominated
Best Film Editing Ferris Webster Nominated
British Academy Film Awards Best Film from any Source The Manchurian Candidate Nominated
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures John Frankenheimer Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Angela Lansbury Won
Best Director – Motion Picture John Frankenheimer Nominated
Laurel Awards Top Action Drama The Manchurian Candidate Nominated
Top Action Performance Frank Sinatra Nominated
Top Female Supporting Performance Angela Lansbury Nominated
National Board of Review Awards Best Supporting Actress Angela Lansbury (Also for All Fall Down) Won
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry The Manchurian Candidate Inducted
Online Film & Television Association Hall of Fame – Motion Picture Won
Producers Guild of America Awards PGA Hall of Fame – Motion Pictures Won

In 1994 The Manchurian Candidate was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[9] The film ranked at No. 67 on the "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies" when that list was first compiled in 1998, but a 2007 revised version excluded it. It was also No. 17 on AFI's "AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills" lists. In April 2007, Angela Lansbury's character was selected by Time as one of the 25 greatest villains in cinema history.[10]

American Film Institute recognition

Releases

According to a false rumor, Sinatra removed the film from distribution after the John F. Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963. Michael Schlesinger, who was responsible for the film's 1988 reissue by MGM/UA, denies the rumor. According to him the film was not removed, but there was little public interest in it immediately before the assassination.[11] Newspaper display ads indicate that after the assassination, it was not rereleased as frequently or as widely as other movies from 1962, but it was indeed revived and never was banned. The movie played at a Brooklyn, New York cinema two months after the assassination (January 1964) and subsequently was televised nationwide on “CBS Thursday Night at the Movies” on September 16, 1965.

Sinatra's representatives acquired rights to the film in 1972 after the initial contract with United Artists expired.[11] The film was rebroadcast on nationwide television in April 1974 on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies.[12] After a successful showing at the New York Film Festival in 1987 increased public interest in the film, the studio reacquired the rights and it became again available for theater and video releases.[11][13]

See also

References
  1. Jordan, Darran (2015). Green Lantern History: An Unauthorised Guide to the DC Comic Book Series Green Lantern. Sydney, Australia: Eclectica Press. ISBN 978-1-326-13987-2. Archived from the original on April 3, 2017. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  2. "The Manchurian Candidate Still Shocks After All These Years". Archived from the original on 2018-03-19. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
  3. Box Office Information for The Manchurian Candidate. Archived 2011-01-27 at the Wayback Machine The Numbers. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  4. Macek, Carl; McGarry, Eileen (1996). Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth (eds.). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. New York City, Woodstock, NY & London: Overlook Press. pp. 183–84.
  5. Director John Frankenheimer's audio commentary, available on The Manchurian Candidate DVD
  6. "The Manchurian Candidate (1962)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on December 12, 2016. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  7. "The Manchurian Candidate Reviews". Metacritic (CBS Interactive). Archived from the original on April 17, 2018. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  8. Ebert, Roger (December 7, 2003). "Great Movie: The Manchurian Candidate". rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on April 27, 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  9. The Manchurian Candidate, One of 25 Films Added to National Registry. Archived 2018-03-26 at the Wayback Machine The New York Times. Retrieved August 28, 2012.
  10. Corliss, Richard (April 25, 2007). "Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Iselin". entertainment.time.com. Time. Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2018.
  11. Schlesinger, Michael (2008-01-27). "A 'Manchurian' myth". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2010-01-09. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
  12. "Prime-time network TV listings for Saturday April 27, 1974". Ultimate70s.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  13. Santopietro, Tom (2009). Sinatra in Hollywood. Macmillan. pp. 324–326. ISBN 9781429964746. Archived from the original on 2014-07-06. Retrieved 2016-03-16.
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