Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.
Frank Sinatra Laurence Harvey Angela Lansbury Janet Leigh James Gregory Henry Silva Leslie Parrish John McGiver Khigh Dhiegh James Edwards Douglas Henderson Albert Paulsen Barry Kelley Lloyd Corrigan Madame Spivy Bess Flowers Leoda Richards Reggie Nalder Colin Kenny Bert Stevens Arthur Tovey Paul Frees Whit Bissell James Yagi Tom Lowell Joe Adams Merritt Bohn Robert Riordan
Sob o Domínio do Mal, El Mensajero del miedo, 谍影迷魂, 恐怖分子, Κάτω από εναν Αλλον Ηλιο, 谍网迷魂, 맨츄리안 켄디데이트, Botschafter der Angst, 맨츄리안 캔디데이트, Ruterdame dreper, Mantshurian kandidaatti, Va' e uccidi, Un crime dans la tête, O Enviado da Manchúria, El mensajero del miedo, 满洲候选人, Hjärntvättad, Маньчжурский кандидат, A mandzsúriai jelölt, Przeżyliśmy wojnę, Ο Άνθρωπος της Μαντζουρίας, המועמד ממנצ'וריה, Mandžuský kandidát, Kandidaten fra Manchuriet, Mançuryalı Aday, Манджурският кандидат, Манжурський кандидат, El embajador del miedo, کاندیدای منچوری, El missatger de la por, 影なき狙撃者, กระชากแผนลับ ดับมหาอำนาจ, 諜網迷魂
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Uhhhhhh can we talk about how absolutely deranged Janet Leigh's character is and how this is never addressed? She's gotta be some sort of secret brainwashing operative, right?
The Manchurian Candidate is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful movie I've ever known in my life.
Am I allowed to say this is the greatest American film? The most American film? The most anti-American film? In any case I don’t think you can overrate it; it’s at once the sum of its well-oiled and wonderfully jagged parts and beyond them, conjuring up and sustaining the kind of immersive, absurdist delirium that movies were invented for, all while keeping a (queens high) poker face. Not only is Frankenheimer’s live TV blatancy perfect for a story about media manipulation and mind control, but the material also brings out gifts he’d never tried to use: he etches a surrealist streak not just through the dream sequences but the waking moments as well, revelling in the same “dime-store symbolism” Welles…
The missing link between Orson Welles and Brian De Palma. An experimental satirical thriller about how the Hollywood apparatus produce fictions that can play sleight of hand with any kind of paranoia and ressentment. Axelrod script remains one of the funniest of its era and Frankenheimer directs everything with playful energy he really rarely conjure elsewhere. Droll, very nasty and still chilling on its implications near six decades later.
Somewhere in this film is an incisive criticism of McCarthyist hysteria. We have a character who uses a senator as an instrument to peddle anti-commie paranoia. The tactic is to get this person to interrupt press briefings by shouting about the amount of ‘card carrying commies’ there are in congress. The genius is that the number keeps changing. This changes the question, the unproven claim is not challenged and instead the conversation focuses on ‘how many are there?’
This is such a smart way of showing how you can magic up hysteria and paranoia out of nothing. But this viewpoint is not the film’s viewpoint. This is a film about how the Soviets and wider communist nations have actually managed…
This movie is Angela Lansbury in full badass mode and Frank Sinatra in full anxious mode and the combination of the two: full hypnotization mode. Bye bye, ace of spades, the queen of diamonds has taken over.
Whilst Alan Pakula would go on to create some of the most potent paranoid thrillers a decade later, the seeds of those post-Kennedy conspiracy theories were perfectly realised in John Frankenheimer's Cold War classic in 1962. Surprisingly this was released on the 24th October 1962 - right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when fear of nuclear warfare was at an all time high.
Frankenheimer tries his damnedest to disturb the viewer from the very beginning of the film with American soldiers sold out by their Chinese guide, handed over to the Russians and South Koreans. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why the film failed at the box-office upon release, with the director…
McCarthy is still lurking around the corner in '62, the cold war paranoia raging, the fear of America that communism infiltrates their national soul peaks. pulling through this completely bonkers storyline without a whiff of a wink is pretty meshugge but highly fascinating. for some reason I wanna see a Coen brothers remake of this.
Criterion Collection Spine #803
AdamDavie & Justin's Letterboxd Movie Club
Some of the most dangerous kinds of enemies are the ones that are able to manipulate us, without us even knowing it.
"I keep telling you not to think! You're very, very good at a great many things, but thinking, hon', just simply isn't one of them."
Director John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate is a gripping and stylistic political thriller, set in the McCarthy era that explores the idea of our own heroes being turned against us through the power of mind control. Before watching this I had always known Angela Lansbury to be the sweet lady from 'Murder She Wrote' and 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks', but wow is she brilliant as…
