The Manchurian Candidate
The Manchurian Candidate - Trailer
1962 | Rated PG-13 | 126 min | Conspiracy Thriller | DCP
"They developed a technique for descent into the unconscious mind, part light-induced, part drug." So goes the high-concept paranoid plot of The Manchurian Candidate (1962), based on novelist Richard Condon's 1959 political thriller about Korean War soldiers captured and brainwashed by communists. In the hands of director John Frankenheimer—who, with over fifty shot-live-for-TV dramatic adaptations to his name, nearly invented the contemporary televisual aesthetic—the technique in question is as much mass media as it is any kind of sci-fi brain control. Featuring unilaterally career-best work from all involved—including a never-better Sinatra, whose sweaty and stubbled visage is the perfect canvas for such a dire phantasm of national self-delusion—The Manchurian Candidate is a sixties crack-up that predicts the ensuing 21st crackdown of that most zealous cult of all: America itself. —Frank Falisi
Featuring an introduction by writer and film critic Frank Falisi.
Frank Falisi is a writer from New Jersey whose work has appeared in Bright Wall/Dark Room, Reverse Shot, Los Angeles Review of Books, and MUBI Notebook, among other outlets. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NYC, where he teaches high school English Language Arts.
Director: John Frankenheimer
Writers: Richard Condon, George Axelrod, John Frankenheimer
Stars: Frank Sinatra, Lee Harvey, Janet Leigh