The Manchurian Candidate

What the reception to this film was like in 1962, I only wish I knew! I was ignorant about the film going in, although I suspect most people know it's a thriller about conspiracy, brain-washing and politics. Not knowing what I was getting into made the film all the more odd and suspenseful, especially those beginning scenes in which you feel like you've been ported into an alternate reality. And you can never quite tell whether the film is being anti-Communist. I mean, it's fairly clear that the Communists are portrayed as the bad guys, and yet they are treated as intelligent men, far from the black-and-white good vs. evil you'll see in most Hollywood films. And Angela Lansbury as the mother is such a patriotic American and so rabidly anti- Communist. At least you think so... That is what I found the most intriguing part of the film, that you never know who is on which side, and that it's so hard to tell by what they say. I had to re-run the train scene with Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh more that once, because I remained perplexed as to which side Janet Leigh's character was supposed to be on. I'm sure that was part of John Frankenheimer's vision, to keep us off-balance while at the same time giving us a satisfying thriller. He sure found the right actors -- Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury. All excellent, but was there ever a more vile portrayal of a mother? (By the way, the DVD is a great transfer; nary a spot or a streak.)

year: 1962
length: 126 min.
rating: 4.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056218/combined