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| Monday, December 1st
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| Movie Forums :: User Reviews :: The Manchurian Candidate (1962) |
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Posted on 9/06/04
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
NOTE: this review was originally posted on our movie forums. Click here to see it in its original context: The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
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| Rating... |
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Richard Condon's book was rejected as a film project by every studio in Hollywood. In doing so, however, it caught the interest of Frank Sinatra, which probably had as much to do with the movie getting made as the efforts of it's screenwriter/director team, George Axelrod and John Frankenheimer. In an afternoon's work, the team bought a copy of the book, wrote a screenplay, attatched Sinatra and started planning the making of The Manchurian Candidate. With a history like that, it's suprisingly high-quality stuff. It's also quite ballsy, attacking the pernicious and unweildy activities of the HUAC. For that it deserves the praises that have, eventually, been afforded this film.
At the time of its release, the only Oscar accolades seen were a Best Supporting Actress nod for Angela Lansbury (she won a Golden Globe) and a best editing nomination. In fact, the performances are excellent across the boards, handling Axelrod's somewhat stilted dialogue.. that is when he wasn't directly quoting Condon, whose dialogue was stilted and bizarro. The one area not acted well was the romance between Sinatra's Major Marco and Janet Leigh's Eugenie, but acting was certainly not the only problem with that. More on that in a moment.
Most impressive to me was the performance of Laurence Harvey as Sgt Raymond Shaw. Snide, condescending and "unloveable", Shaw is an actor's nightmare until we see his love of Jocelyn. Shaw plays both sides of that contrast with poignant grace, and the effect is heartwrenching when he loses his humanity. By that time we've seen how much of his life has been spent locked in the sarcophagus of his mother's ambition, and we want to see him breathe. The depth of this character makes for a very moving emotional center in the film.
This film is very much a product of it's time, concerned with the Korean conflict and the "Communist Threat", including a dose of American supremacy that might make your toes curl. The social mores are pretty dated as well, especially the roles of the women. Sexual undertones are underplayed, to pretty startling effect at one point. It's not unrelatable, but one does wonder how many more generations will relate without a study guide. I can see why an update was made.
The Women of The Manchurian Candidate
One gets the feeling, watching the behaviour of the women in this story, that any connection between real live women and this story's author is strictly hypothetical: he seems not to know any, based on the WEIRD way these characters behave. They're downright spooky.
Most prominently, we have Mrs Iselin, a ball-busting, pushy, obsessive manipulator who, in Condon's book, eventually seduces her son. This is "downplayed" (read: unseen) in the movie, until very near the end, when Lansbury nearly made me drop my teacup.
Eugenie is a pleasant enough character, but her beaviour is positively warped - breaking off an engagement after one very awkward meeting on a train. Having seen the modern version, I thought, watching their meeting, that it was fairly obvious that Eugenie had been assigned to hook up with Maj Marco: she initiates dialogue and works very hard to keep it going, despite his almost complete refusal to make eye contact. She is so intent on programming her address and phone number into his brain that we half expect her to pull out a whirling Mesmerizer and put him under her spell. This, after no more than 10 lines of conversation. Also in this 3 minute scene, out of nowhere they each inquire if the other is arabic. (WHAT??) All of this worked for me until the film ended and I realised Eugenie isn't an agent in this film. She's just a pretty woman who uses mind control as a matter of course. Sure. Don't we all? 
The only woman not suspiciously assertive is the object of Sgt Raymond Shaw's affections: Jocelyn. It's her love for him, however, that results in the deaths of five central characters by film's end, when Major Marco lets Sgt Shaw go after being swayed by Jocelyn: "I can make him well." So it seems perky and sweet aren't enough either.
Question for Frankenheimer, Axelrod and Condon: mysogenate much, boys??
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