Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

When the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate(1962) was first released, it probably seemed like science fiction to most viewers. Thirteen months later came the assassination of JFK, and suddenly the aliens were among us.

Laurence Harvey plays Sgt. Raymond Shaw, a Korean War veteran so decorated and lauded, it seems strange that, as his smothering mother (Angela Lansbury as one of the great movie villainesses) puts it, he always acts as though his head is about to come to a point.

The trouble is, Mother is just about right, and it turns out that she has a lot to do with it. Shaw and the survivors of his troop have recurring nightmares about what really happened in Korea. Shaw’s mom is so insistent upon getting her vacuous Senator-husband (James Gregory in a great satire of McCarthy-ism) into the White House, she runs roughshod over what little control and happiness Raymond can summon. And how is it that every time Shaw plays solitaire, he comes upon the queen of diamonds?

None too soon, fellow soldier Major Marco (Frank Sinatra, who co-produced the movie) befriends Shaw to find out what makes both of them tick…tick like a bomb ready to explode.

The movie’s A-list crew includes playwright George Axelrod, who adapted the screenplay from an even more explicit novel by Richard Condon (who, as he again proved years later with Prizzi’s Honor, knew from dark satire). Director John Frankenheimer, whose began his career in live 㣖s TV, used his broadcast background to both heighten the story’s suspense and skewer banal politicians who used TV for their own ends.

The Manchurian Candidate pulls no punches. A quarter-century after Sinatra withdrew the movie from public view, it was re-released in 1988 to continued acclaim—and a well-deserved PG-13 rating. The scary part is how much more plausible it seems with each passing year.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older