The Manchurian Candidate (Special Edition)

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	John Frankenheimer
Starring:	Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey
Release date:	13 July, 2004
List price:	~~$14.94~~
Our price:	$10.53 that is 30% off!

The Manchurian Candidate (Special Edition)

Average rating: Stars

it doesn't get too much better than this

Manchurian Candidate is a near perfect movie. It's a nerve wracking suspense story, a Cold War spy story, and a first class tragedy. Laurence Harvey is actually heartbreaking as Raymond Shaw, a man who has been absolutely ruined first by his monstrous mother played in an incredible and frightening performance by Angela Lansbury and then years later by Chinese brainwashers in Korea. He's not a nice man, he's cold, aloof and arrogant but when the audience sees why they and his one real friend played by Frank Sinatra (it's one of his best roles)come to care for him and you want him to somehow be saved.

Raymond is a time bomb and every second of the movie is a countdown to his going off. Will Sinatra's character be able to save himself in time to figure out what wrong? Will he be able to stop Raymond? America, the world and the lives of the three people who actually care about Raymond Shaw are all on the line and the answer is in a deck of playing cards.

This movie has intense acting, camera work that shows everything at odd, slightly unnerving angles and an ending that still gives the view a jolt. Avoid the weak remake the get the real thing.

The Manchurian Candidate (Special Edition) - Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey

Compassion Combined with 1960s Sci-Fi Yields Masterpiece

The movie is a 1960s era thriller with a slight sci-fi twist. In that respect, the first 20 to 30 minutes or so is very dry, almost flat, clinical, and uninteresting, and I was starting to wonder why everyone was excited about the movie. Without giving away the plot, the story is about a soldier that is brain washed by the Russians after being captured in Korea, and he returns to the US as a sleeper agent.

Everything is going along so so for that first 20 minutes, until it suddently dawns on the viewer that these soldiers and their families are all human and they are caught up in a potential disaster that is about to unravel and wreck havoc on all concerned, both the innocent and the evil. At that point one develops a certain queasiness in the stomach as one stands by and helplessly watches the plot unfold,and the whole movie experience changes from so so to high drama.

Also, early in the movie it is not clear why some of the actors are there. For example Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey have key roles, but why for example is Janet Leigh suddenly thrust into the story? Is she there just to look pretty? The answer is that the women create a human touch and it is all part of the writer and director's technique to introduce a human element into the story, especially the innocent girlfriend of the lead Laurence Harvey, the daughter of a senator. Leigh is Sinatra's girlfriend here and she is here to make Sinatra look human. There is a certain numbness and detachment in the movie in the first 20 minutes. We expect soldiers to take chances and be hurt, and we expect sci-fi type movies to be a bit clinical and dry. But when the soldiers return home from Korea and interact with the innocent women they suddenly show their human side - especially the Raymond character played by Harvey. He is transformed into a three dimensional human with a heart. The women, and our reaction to them, and the men in the movie and their interaction with the women introduce a whole new level of drama and a feeling of doom that grabs our attention. I think that is the key element in the movie, and the turning point, i.e.: Raymond's love for his young girl friend. His fate becomes tied to her fate. Also at that point we stop thinking of Sinatra as Sinatra acting in a movie, but rather we see him as his character, as we see the other actors as characters. That transformation at that moment is what breathes some life into the movie; that moment is when Raymond and his girlfriend are shown on a beach in the country - the viewer realizes all the implications - and what follows after that is what makes this a great modern film.

The acting by all is superb, including great performnces by Harvey, Landsbury, James Gregory, and Frank Sinatra. Henry Silva plays his typical menacing role. I bought the DVD and decided to watch the extras before watching the movie. Although the movie is in black and white, all the DVD extras are in color. There is an excellent interview with Frank Sinatra undertaken jointly by the writer George Axelrod who wrote the screnplay from the book by Richard Condon, and the director John Frankenheimer. In this interview Frank Sinatra tells us that he thinks this was his best acting performance, and he praises the lead actor Laurence Harvey who plays the lead character Raymond, and he tells us about his broken finger from a fight with Henry Silva in the movie. The other interview is with Angela Lansbury and I found that to be a fairly illuminating interview that covered many details surrounding the movie.

This is a black and white 1962 movie that cuts pretty close to the Kennedy assasination, and because of that it was pulled from the market in 1963 and did not re-surface again for almost 20 years. All in all one of the better movies ever made with a superb story and excellent acting.

Obviously it is 5 stars.

Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey - The Manchurian Candidate (Special Edition)

The original Manchurian Candidate

In the 1963 film "The Manchurian Candidate", Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is a well loved Korean War hero, except that the other members of his platoon do not feel that is correct, especially his former commanding officer Maj. Bennet Marco (Frank Sanatra). And as it turns out, Marco is right. What no ine knows, or even remembers, is that the platoon was captured while in combat and brainwashed by Communist agents. Now Shaw is the hit man in a very complicated conspiracy to change American balence of power. The 1963 movie was extreamly controversial because of thee Kenndey assasination in November of '63, and pulled out of circulation for almost thirty years. And that is a shame because the movie deserves to have it's own life. John Frankenheimer deserves a lot of credit for this paranoid, anti-propaganda film, nota lot of movies at that time had the courage to attack MaCarthyism yet, especially with Vietnam heating up. Also credit goes to Frank Sanatra. This is probably his best film, and it shows that if he had taken his acting career as seriously as his singing, he might have been something special; but all we are left with is the awful 'Rat Pack' movies. I really liked th movie except for one thing; the idea and method of the brainwashing. One thing you can not make a person kill if they do not want to. I know that they raise that specific issue in the movie and say it itn't correct, but I still know better. And another thing about hypnotism and post hypnotic suggestion is that, even if it could be done, it can not be done that fast (in three days). But those are minor complaints, and it is a really excellent movie, and I recomend it. As for it's 2004 remake with Denzel Washington, all I can say is that I liked them both, differently but equally. Both movies are about issues of their respective time, this one Communism and Senate abuse of power, and the new one about corperate influence on the government.