The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is a solid political thriller from the age of McCarthyism and the Cold War. The script blends real events (such as Korea's brainwashing of American troops in the 1950s as documented by Robert Lifton) and one-ups McCarthyism not only with a foreign plot to assassinate the U.S. president but something far more sinister -- and then throws in another devious twist or two. The more their performances sink in, I savor how Laurence Harvey is scintillating as the reluctant and deeply conflicted war hero Raymond Shaw, Frank Sinatra is wholly human as the torn Maj. Bennett Marco who just knows something is very wrong, and Angela Lansbury is devastating as the fulminating anticommunist crusader "Mrs. Iselin" with a nefarious agenda (and a few sick secrets). Both men serendipitously find love after their harrowing military service with two very different women and it helps redeem them -- though the tortured Raymond is in nearly every other way a pawn to his brainwashing. (I said nearly.) The scene with the kiss is mind-blowing when its implications sink in. (In the Special Features, the actress explains how the director gave two specific instructions for that scene, one of them intended to increase the ominousness of the kiss, esp. for audiences in 1962. Think of it as a Sixties take on a "fava beans and a nice chianti" scene some 30 years earlier.) The movie shows a brinksmanship of plot surprises and I am fascinated by the integral spectrum of conflictedness in the lead character. His symptoms make complete sense although only at the end did it all come together. If you enjoy Casablanca, The Rope, Network, and Dr. Strangelove, you should enjoy The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Accept no substitutes. 5 stars.