In honor of this 4th of July holiday that just passed, I’ve watched a patriotic, political thriller classic, John Frankenheimer’s “The Manchurian Candidate” from 1962.
Really, the movie isn’t patriotic at all, but it’s about the Cold War and a Communist conspiracy theory and Presidential hoohah. And it has Frank Sinatra in it, who of course is as American as apple pie. Rather, it’s a carefully drawn and ultimately tragic thriller that seems to have not aged a day (although there is maybe one silly reason why it has), least of all in its engaging cinematic style.
Most thrillers like this, or specifically ones made around the early ’60s and moving into the ’70s, are strictly business in their story, building layer upon layer of complication and tension without leaving much room for character. That’s not necessarily a slam on those films, many of which become careful studies in exactly the diligent style they take. But “The Manchurian Candidate” is such a complex thriller, and yet the character back stories are key to the plot’s unraveling.
It stars Laurence Harvey as Raymond Shaw, a decorated war hero who is being manipulated by his senator stepfather and equally controlling mother. He hates them and tries to keep them out of his life, but a secret team of Communist specialists have a way of intervening. They’ve hypnotized him and plan to use him as an assassin, and while anyone can guess that Shaw will be used in some capacity to murder a high up political official he has the ease of getting close to, the specifics of who is involved and what are at stake are what make the film tick.
Sinatra plays Bennett Marco, Shaw’s CO in the war, and he’s convinced that Shaw and the entire unit may have been brainwashed to believe Shaw was actually a hero, only for the reason that he has a recurring nightmare in which Shaw is seen murdering two of members of his unit.
This scene is the movie’s best, an elegantly revealed scene staged wonderfully by Frankenheimer. He begins by placing all the soldiers in a hotel lobby listening to a woman giving a mindless speech about gardening to a group of rich elderly women. The camera starts at the front of the room and rotates in a 360 to reveal all the odd looking women, and without cutting returns to the front where the scene has changed, as has the speaker, but the men are still stuck in place. The man is the coy and creepy hypnotist, and Frankenheimer plays with our expectations in this dreamlike state by replacing him in the hotel room setting, the women in the war room and the generals in the hotel audience.
Frankenheimer works best in these crowded scenes, with very busy cinematography and the camera jostling in between large groups book-ending both ends of the film. Another masterstroke moment is when the senator declares in a press conference that he knows there are registered Communists in the American government, and the scene is kept economical by offering us both the long shot of the speaker as well as the close-up projected on TV monitors as part of a live broadcast.
The whole film is expertly put together. A few quick thoughts:
The girl who plays Shaw’s girlfriend/wife, Leslie Parrish, WOW. I thought she was cute as a button.
Moving on, Janet Leigh didn’t really have much to do. I suspected she had something to do with the conspiracy when she kept reciting her apartment number and then told that ridiculous story about breaking up with her fiancee. She ends up being a meaningless love interest for Sinatra. Oh well.
Angela Lansbury as Shaw’s mother: Excellent. Really made me hate her.
(SPOILER!) I said this movie hasn’t aged at all, but who still plays solitaire, least of all with an actual deck of cards. It would have to be played on an iPod today in a remake (although, obviously not the 2004 remake). And what guarantee is there that you turn up the Queen of Diamonds anyway? Klondike solitaire sucks.