Other Titles • The Manchurian Candidate • Botschafter der Angst (1963)
Synopses for The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
1.
Ask Major Bennet Marco and he'll say that Sgt. Raymond Shaw is a hero worthy of the Medal Of Honor. But despite what he says, Marco suspects otherwise. A bizarre, recurring nightmare gives him teh uneasy feeling that Shaw is something far less heroic and far more insidious. Is it possible that Shaw is a traitor? Can Marco convince the Army of his suspicions? How does Shaw's powermad mother figure into all this? So many questions. So precious little time....
(48 votes)
2.
"Entertaining, fast-paced and suspenseful" (LA Herald-Examiner), this gripping political thriller about a group of American soldiers who are captured and brainwashed into becoming sleeper agents is "a genuine movie classic" (People)!
(41 votes)
3.
John Frankenheimer's brilliant adaptation of Richard Condon's Cold-War satire, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is the director's best film, both a coruscating thriller and a razor-sharp satire of political hysteria that captures the turbulent mood of the 1960s. Packed with sly details, such as the liberal senator "bleeding" milk when he's shot, the film demands repeated viewings.
Laurence Harvey stars as Sergeant Raymond Shaw, whose U.S. army unit is captured while fighting in Korea, taken to Manchuria, and brainwashed by Chinese communists. The men return to the U.S. with no conscious memory of their experience, and Shaw is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery. But when Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) starts having nightmares, he begins an authorized investigation into what happened in Manchuria and eventually reveals that the sergeant's brainwashing has transformed him into an unconscious assassin who can be triggered by his communist controllers at will. Although Sinatra is slightly miscast as a tortured intellectual, Harvey and the remaining cast are excellent, as is Richard Sylbert's inventively designed "brainwashing" sequence, Lionel Lindon's extraordinary depth-of-field camerawork, and David Amram's witty, neoclassical score.
(41 votes)
4.
You will never find a more chillingly suspenseful, perversely funny, or viciously satirical political thriller than The Manchurian Candidate, based on the novel by Richard Condon (author of Winter Kills). The film, withheld from distribution by star Frank Sinatra for almost a quarter-century after President Kennedy's assassination, has lost none of its potency over time. Former infantryman Bennet Marco (Sinatra) is haunted by nightmares about his platoon having been captured and brainwashed in Korea. The indecipherable dreams seem to centre on Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), a decorated war hero but a cold fish of a man whose own mother (Angela Lansbury, in one of the all-time great dragon-lady roles) describes him as looking like his head is "always about to come to a point". Mrs Bates has nothing on Lansbury's character, the manipulative queen behind her second husband, Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), a notoriously McCarthyesque demagogue. --Jim Emerson
(39 votes)
Mooviees.com is not the official site for this film.
All editorial views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only.
Movie Database
In Theaters
