The Manchurian Candidate

:For the 2004 film; see The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film)

1962 film

The premise of the film was that, in the 1950s, the Soviets had developed a technique based on "brainwashing" and akin to hypnosis, whereby a person could be snapped into and out of a trance, ordered to do things with full compliance, and have no memory of such actions afterwards. United States soldiers fighting in the Korean War were thus captured, taken to Manchuria in the People's Republic of China to be brainwashed, then covertly released back to the American forces. To cover their tracks, the Communists would implant false memories in the American soldiers' minds and provide a subconscious trigger whereby the soldier could be snapped into and out of hypnosis. Even after full reintegration with American society, they would have no knowledge of their having been brainwashed or the triggers which set them off.

Related Topics:
1950s - Soviets - Brainwashing - Hypnosis - United States - Korean War - Manchuria - People's Republic of China - Communist - False memories - Subconscious

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The movie stars Frank Sinatra (as Major Bennett Marco) and Laurence Harvey (as Sergeant Raymond Shaw) as soldiers who are captured and brainwashed during the Korean War in 1952. Their squad is made to believe Raymond Shaw saved their lives in combat, for which he receives the Congressional Medal of Honor when they return to the US. After the war is over, Marco begins to have a recurring nightmare in which Raymond kills two of his fellow comrades. When he finds out that another Army member has been having the same dream, he sets out to uncover the mystery.

Related Topics:
Frank Sinatra - Laurence Harvey - Korean War - Medal of Honor

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In reality, the Communists intend to use Raymond as a test sleeper agent abroad and, using the queen of diamonds in a deck of ordinary playing cards as a subconscious trigger, compel him to commit heinous crimes, including murder, crimes of which he will have no recollection. It is learned late in the movie that Raymond is, in fact, controlled by his Soviet spy mother (played by Angela Lansbury), who seeks to advance the fortunes of her husband and Raymond's step-father, Senator John Iselin (played by James Gregory), a bombastic McCarthy-like demagogue aiming for the vice-presidential nomination. She uses Raymond to assassinate the main senatorial opponent to Iselin's vice-presidential candidacy (in the process, Raymond also kills his wife, the senator's daughter). Mrs. Iselin then prepares Raymond to assassinate the party's presidential nominee as well. In this way, John Iselin would become the presidential nominee by default, and would probably win the election amid mass hysteria that would justify emergency powers for the new president. Marco, however, figures out a way to attempt to destroy Raymond's subconcious triggers. Although Marco's attempts seem to fail at first, Raymond regains control over himself at the party convention and kills the Iselins, and then himelf.

Related Topics:
Playing cards - Subconscious - Angela Lansbury - John Iselin - James Gregory - McCarthy-like - Demagogue - Assassinate - Mass hysteria - Emergency powers - Convention

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Janet Leigh plays Marco's love interest. The nature of her character has been heavily discussed, with a bizarre conversation on a train between her character and Marco viewed by some as implying that Leigh's character, Eugenie Rose Cheney, was actually working for the Communists to attempt to activate Marco's programming, much as the queen of diamonds activates Shaw's.

Related Topics:
Janet Leigh - Train

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Critical response

The film is consistently in the top 100 (is #77 as of August 2005) on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films; was #67 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies, and #17 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills; and has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Related Topics:
Internet Movie Database - American Film Institute - Library of Congress - National Film Registry

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The Kennedy Assassination

Hollywood legend holds that Sinatra removed the film from distribution after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, although there is no evidence to support this. In fact, it appeared as part of the Thursday Night Movies series on CBS in September of 1965 and again later in that television season. It also was shown twice on NBC, once in the spring of 1974 and again in the summer of 1975. Sinatra didn't acquire distribution rights to The Manchurian Candidate until the late 1970's, and was involved in a theatrical re-release of the film in 1988.

Related Topics:
Assassination - John F. Kennedy - CBS

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Trivia

Sinatra permanently damaged the little finger on his right hand when he punched through a coffee table during his fight scene with Henry Silva. The table was not supposed to figure into the fight, so a break-away prop was not used--Sinatra accidentally put his hand through a real coffee table. The effect was so dramatic that the shot made it into the final version of the film.

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