Mommies, and Commies, and Frankie... Oh My!

When I hear someone mention the Manchurian Candidate, I immediately think of the horrible 2004 movie with Liev Schreiber, a phenomenal actor in my opinion (watch Defiance), and Denzel Washington. So when I found out i was going to watch the original movie, needless to say i was not thrilled. But, much to my surprise, I instantly fell in love.  

Review:

The year is 1962. The United States in the midst of the Cold War and the Democratic and Republican parties are holding conventions to decide who will be the forerunners for the office of the President of the United States. The Communist threat looms in the shadows of every street corner. In every home mothers smother their children with too much protection and wives demean their husbands into submissive roles. American security, both the land and the family unit, were under attack.

The above premise gives way to the 1962 original Manchurian Candidate directed by John Frankenheimer, who also directed one of Robert De'Niro's best movies, Ronin. There is one particular scene in which I'd like to focus on my review that shows off the best of directing. The scene that jumps back and forth between the room in New Jersey and the Russian/ Chinese heads of state room. I don't know if his objective was disorientation or what but there is a part in this scene where Frankenheimer has the camera spins and capture the bored faces of soldiers, the Communist officials, and the Flower club in New Jersey. For me, this was the pinnacle directing moment in the movie: you don't know what is real and what is not. The Communist officials seamlessly transform into the Flower club girls and the background changes so gradually that you almost feel as though the plants behind Sinatra's head have been there the whole time. He really captures that feeling of being brainwashed. Also, the way the Communist officials and the New Jersey Flower club members interact is disorienting and incredibly well done. While you're watching the scene unfold and Shaw starts killing people, the seamless transition from these flower club girls and the communist officials add even more discomfort to the situation as well. Impressive directing of that particular scene!

Acting wise, I think Angela Lansbury made the biggest impression on me as the Soviet spy Mrs. Iselin. From the very beginning I knew something "fishy" was up with this woman. The article by Rogin talked about this feeling of Matriarchy and how powerful the feminine figure was becoming in the household. Mrs. Iselin was extreme of that feeling; she was controlling, manipulative, destructive, and embodied the polar opposite of what America was founded on. Even before she was revealed as a communist, I had a feeling that she was a red because everything she told her husband to do was contradictory to American societal norms. And let us talk about poor Iselin. The only thing he was really guilty of in this whole movie was that he fell in love with the wrong woman. Yes he was submissive and yes he was drunk the whole movie, but he was submissive because he was in love and drunk because he was unhappy (you could tell he was unhappy during the costume party at the end of the movie, grunting after Lansbury told him to go "sit in a corner"). 

Conclusion:

I've only talked about only a few things here but they were, in my opinion, the most important. The Manchurian Candidate scores a 8.5 out of 10. On a side note does anyone else feel as though Angela Lansbury was born old? She is only 37 in this movie and looks exactly like she did in Murder She Wrote!