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Bookmark this pageThe Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Director: John Frankenheimer
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Korean War veteran Major Marco (Sinatra) is troubled by a recurring nightmare in which Congressional Medal of Honor hero Raymond Shaw (Harvey) carries out Communist instructions to shoot fellow American PoWs. Working for Intelligence, Marco unravels a cunning Red plot to brainwash his old platoon and to turn Shaw into an assassin. Shaw's father-in-law is the ranting McCarthyite Senator Iselin (Gregory), a mouthpiece for Shaw's ambitious mother (Lansbury), a political background which gives the killer access to the highest in the land. Who is Shaw's American control, when and where are they going to aim him? Frankenheimer's version of Richard Condon's tragically prophetic novel looks even better now than it did then. Its greatest virtue lies in its brilliant balancing acts: political satire and nail-biting thriller, the twin lunacies of the Right and Left, and the outrageously funny dialogue during the parallel courtships set against the sadness of the unloveable Shaw's predicament. Among a marvellous cast - star-wattage Sinatra, hilariously dumb Gregory, the giggling Peking Institute brainwasher Khigh Dhiegh - Lansbury stands out. An Iron Lady to savour, for a change. A masterpiece.Author: BC
Cast & crew
Director: John Frankenheimer
Producer: George Axelrod, John Frankenheimer
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, Khigh Dhiegh full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 126 mins
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