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The Manchurian Candidate

United States

1962

126 Min

Black and White

1.85:1

English

Currently 4.1/5 Stars.
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PROD George Axelrod, John Frankenheimer

SCR John Frankenheimer, Richard Condon, George Axelrod

CAST Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, Khigh Dhiegh, James Edwards

The Manchurian Candidate is one of the greatest paranoid thrillers, and nastiest political satires ever made. Based on a novel by Richard Condon (Prizzi’s Honor, Winter Kills), the film stars Lawrence Harvey as a war hero who returns from a Korean War prison camp with a brain that was not only washed, but also starched, pressed, and folded. Angela Lansbury plays Harvey’s politically ambitious mother (though in real life, she was only three years older than him). With Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh. —Seattle International Film Festival

Director

John Frankenheimer

Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he realized his natural talent to handle a camera. After his military discharge he began a TV career in 1953 convincing CBS to hire him as an assistant director, which consisted mainly working as a cameraman at that time. He eventually started to direct the show he was working on as an assistant director. Frankenheimer still didn’t want to direct films. He liked to direct live television, and he would have continued to do it if the profession itself hadn’t cease to exist. He first turned to the big screen with The Young Stranger (1957) which he hated to do because he thought he didn’t understand movies and wasn’t used to work with only one camera. Disappointed with his first feature film experience… read more

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Dave

5Apr13

I first saw this probably 12-13 years ago, when I was only first beginning my true interest in cinema, and just rewatched it today. I still find it fantastic. It works as a thriller, a chilling psychological drama, and with surprising bits of humor. Overall, an intriguing artifact of the Cold War and Cold War-era politics. One of my favorites of the 1960s.

Aguaespejo

31Mar13

Odd surreal hairball of a movie with psychosexual family romance, thriller, a cameo martial arts scene (!) and war scenes thrown into the mix. What the movie is going to become to hard to keep track of scene to scene! But the idea that this is some kind of recovered masterpiece, I don't get at all.

Daniel Trujillo

8Mar13

Best creepy movie I've ever seen

hmgurny

4Mar13

My review of the film: http://thecinemaniacs15.com/2012/12/20/a-dangerous-game-of-chess/

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