The Manchurian Candidate 1962

The Manchurian Candidate
The original 1962

The Manchurian candidate is a thriller film which was released in the early 1960s. The suspense filled thriller consists of an intruiging yet interesting storyline.

The film stars very much star-studded names most notably, Frank Sinatra who is widely known for his exceptionally singing talent, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey.

It is about a young man ,who formally was in the army and fought in the Korean war, was brainwashed to act as an assassin for a communist conspiracy. However, to the viewers knowledge they would assume that the mans mother (played by Angela Lansbury) is the person who is brainwashing him into doing things and also it is assumed that the only method in which the man can actually be brainwashed is by him playing solitaire and physically seeing the queen of clovers, this man who was brainwashed was the step-son of a right-wing politician in the united states of america who, towards the ending of the film, wanted to become the next vice president-elect Mr John Iselin.

In the production of the film, Sinatra recommended Lucille Ball to play the part of Raymond Shaw's mother, however the director of the film insisted on giving the part to Angela Lansbury whom he had worked with in a previous film entitled All Fall Down.

The film has one noticably difference from the book itself. This difference is that in the book, Mrs Iselin (Raymond's mother) brainwashed Raymond into having sexual intercourse with him. Simply due to the fact that this act would not have been condoned by ,both the audience and the film makers respectively, it was replaced with Mrs Iselin brainwashing her son and she kisses him on the lips just before the climax of the film.

Manchurian Candidate

The film has risen to critical acclaim, not only by thriller genre fans but also by film critics.

The film currently holds a 98 per cent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes film critic website.

To add to the films critical acclaim, famous film critic Roger Ebert described the film as an exemplary "great film".