Now that election season is over in the real world, it's time to look at one of the best political thrillers ever made, John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate.
Journalist Raymond Shaw is a Medal of Honor winner and veteran of the Korean War. Shaw is also the stepson of a prominent Joe McCarthy-like US Senator. But what nobody else knows is that he is a brainwashed assassin in an international communist plot to control the US government. Only one man can stop him, Major Ben Marco, Shaw's CO from Korea.
John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate is unlike any movie that was made before. It is unique in its immediacy and reflection upon the era in which it was made. Frankenheimer's adaptation of Richard Condon's novel addresses the fear and paranoia surrounding communism in the American public in the early 1960s. The film uses a blend of documentary, television and cinematic techniques to stitch together a story of a grand communist conspiracy unfolding during an election. The combination of these styles is best showcased in the following scene:
Here Frankenheimer skillfully shows the immediacy and manipulation of public opinion that the medium of television allowed. Simultaneously, he shows how bad actors can shape the day's political discussion. In the era of Trump's Big Lie and Pizzagate, the themes presented in Manchurian Candidate still find an audience today.
Any serious discussion of Manchurian Candidate can't happen without singling out the atypical performance of Angela Lansbury as Elenor Shaw, Raymond's mother and Soviet agent. Audiences then and now are used to seeing her playing a good-natured witch or a crime novelist turned amateur sleuth, in Manchurian, she plays a bone-chilling villain. To her credit, at the time of the film's production, Lansbury was only 36, only 3 years older than Laurence Harvey, her cinematic son. Her extraordinary talent allowed her to play older, which is not typical of a performer. That's also why she seemed to live forever: she could play 55 when she was 36. She showcases her ability best in this scene:
Next to his performance in From Here to Eternity or The Man with the Golden Arm, the Manchurian Candidate has to be the best performance in Sinatra's career. Sinatra plays Shaw's CO from Korea, Major Ben Marco. Marco is tortured by dreams of his platoon being brainwashed tortured and killed.
In this performance, although not explicit, Sinatra portrays a man suffering from what we now call PTSD. In 1962 PTSD was called Operational Exhaustion. PTSD, when it was portrayed previously, was something that was suffered by a secondary character as a sign of weakness. In Manchurian Candidate, Marco's trauma is the key to unravelling the whole plot, his suffering is meaningful.
THE EDGE
The Manchurian Candidate is a terrific movie, but it's not perfect.
The most awkward part of the movie is Rosie, portrayed by Janet Leigh. She is a top-tier actress and the script gives her almost nothing to do. It is a testament to Ms Leigh's ability that she could do anything with the character. Rosie meets Marco on a train, he's a mess. The next time we see her, she's bailing Marco out of jail for assault and she tells him he's just dumped her fiancee and is deeply in love with him. It's an awkward "love story" to shoehorn into a great pseudo-political thriller.
THE LOWDOWN
The Manchurian Candidate would have been a challenge to shoot. The most impressive scene or scenes are when the grandiose Communist Conspiracy brainwashes Marco, Shaw and the rest of their lost platoon. The platoon is put in a trance and led to believe they are bored to death sitting in a hotel while a ladies' garden club is having a meeting. The scene shifts seamlessly between the garden party and the Moscow brainwashing facility. The cast and crew would have to match the same actions and camera movements on 2 different sets with 2 groups of performers, all while shooting it as if it is happening simultaneously in the same room. This is an extraordinary undertaking and would have required an enormous effort and planning. This is doubly so for the script supervisor. The script supervisor or continuity person has a lot of responsibility during the shoot, but chief among them is making sure that the dialogue and camera angles all match and can be cut together in the edit. IMDb credits 3 Script Supervisors on the film. I have not been able to determine who was responsible for the scene, but according to Frankenheimer, it took 7 days to shoot. That's 7 very long and difficult and tedious days.
It is no secret that without Sinatra the Manchurian Candidate would just be a good book. Sinatra is arguably at the height of his popularity and influence at this point in history. With his name attached, the Manchurian Candidate was able to secure its financing. This and the reality that he was the star of the movie means that he had a say in everything that happened on that set. By his admission, he is not the easiest actor to work with. However, by all accounts from the cast Sinatra was a professional....that would only do one take. Sinatra would give it his all in take one. Even if he did go again, the performance would fall flat. This puts extraordinary pressure on the crew because they can't make a mistake, however innocent. This is best shown in the scene where Marco confronts Shaw in the hotel across from Madison Square Garden.
In the Cinematic world, it takes at least 2 crew to operate a camera. One is the Operator. The Operator works with the Director of Photography and sets the frame and moves the camera as needed to accomplish the shot. The 1st Assistant Camera is responsible for keeping the focus throughout the shot, this involves setting marks and making measurements during set up. They also make adjustments during the shot. 1st AC is a very difficult job and requires a terrific amount of concentration and skill. Today, a 1st AC can use a video monitor to keep the shot in focus. In 1962, your 1st AC had no monitor. They would have to set their distances and marks and rely on the Operator looking through the viewfinder to tell them their focus was soft.
Show scene
You'll notice in this scene the focus on Sinatra is soft, while it is sharp on Harvey. This is because Sinatra would only do one take. The operator and the 1st AC couldn't get the proper focus in the first take, and they didn't get a chance to correct it in take 2 OR take 2 was a garbage performance. When you think about it, its a miracle they got as much in focus as they did.
No discussion about working with Sinatra would be complete without showing a standard rider that Sinatra would have while he was on tour (courtesy of www.thesmokinggun.com):
For the love of God, don't run out of diet soda, campbell's soup or Ivory soap! That's what he would expect on tour, he might not have had all this on the movie, but you can bet he had most of it.
That's not to say that Sinatra was ungrateful, years later, Sinatra, Frankenheimer and Axelrod sat down and reminisced about the production. Sinatra was quick to praise the crew.
The Manchurian Candidate would have been a tough and tedious movie to make. But it would have been nonetheless memorable for the complexity and challenge it brought. There are a lot of heroes on this production, not just the ones on camera.
THE JIST
The Manchurian Candidate is more than a Cold War relic—it’s a timeless exploration of power, paranoia, and the fragility of democracy. Its themes remain as urgent today as they were in 1962. It's successor from 2004 makes terrific improvements, but that only highlights the timelessness of the original.
This article is dedicated to Amalia Wade, Mollie Kent and Grace Dubray. These three Showbiz Hobos are listed as the Script Supervisors on The Manchurian Candidate.
The Manchurian Candidate is available to view for free on Tubi
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