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

The Manchurian Candidate is a 1959 novel by Richard Condon. It has twice been adapted into movies of the same name; a celebrated 1962 film directed by John Frankenheimer, and a 2004 film directed by Jonathan Demme.

1962 film

Template:Spoiler 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.

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 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 learns that another platoon member has been having the same dream, he sets out to uncover the mystery.

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 murders, of which he will have no recollection. Late in the film it is learned 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 himself.

Janet Leigh plays Marco's love interest. A bizarre conversation on a train between her character and Marco has been viewed by some as implying that Leigh's character, Eugenie, is working for the Communists to activate Marco's programming, much as the queen of diamonds activates Shaw's. Frankenheimer, however, in the DVD commentary, points out that he had no idea whether or not "Rosie" was supposed to be an agent of any sort, but merely lifted the train conversation straight from the Condon novel.

Critical response

Angela Lansbury was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film earned another nomination for Best Editing. The film is consistently in the top 100 on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films (#71 as of January 2006). It was #67 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Movies," and #17 on its "100 Years, 100 Thrills" lists.

The Kennedy Assassination

Hollywood rumor holds that Sinatra removed the film from distribution after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, though the evidence for this is conflicting. Certainly the film was rarely shown in the decades after 1963. But it did appear as part of the Thursday Night Movies series on CBS on September 16, 1965 and again later that season. It was also 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 1970s. He was involved in a theatrical re-release of the film in 1988. In recent years (e.g., 2000-06), the film has very rarely been shown on television, according to listings in TV Guide.

In 1962, Lee Harvey Oswald daily walked past a downtown Dallas movie theater where the film played for four weeks, November 14 to December 12. This raises the very real possibility that Oswald saw the film or was otherwise inspired by it. Ironically, the theater was on Elm Street, the same street on which President Kennedy was assassinated by Oswald one year later. These facts were only established some four decades after the assassination of President Kennedy (see Oswald's Trigger Films, 2000).

Usage of the term

The term "Manchurian candidate," spawned by the book and later films, refers to an individual who has undergone brainwashing and / or mind control with the intent of creating a "Sleeper" personality within that individual.

A Manchurian candidate has no knowledge of the brainwashing he underwent. He will behave normally in all situations, until the sleeper is "awakened" by a particular word or phrase. When the candidate encounters this trigger, he will perform any action his controllers demand, like an assassination. Following the act, the candidate will have no knowledge or recollection of his actions, and will return to a normal state until awakened again.

The general scientific consensus is that mind control of the type shown in the film was not possible then, is still not possible, and is not likely to be possible in the near future. See the respective articles for more details.

See also

• Conspiracy thriller
• Project MKULTRA, CIA mind-control research program
• The Bourne Identity
• Seven Days in May
• The Simultaneous Man
• Telefon
• Sleeper agent
• Satire

External links

• The Manchurian Candidate (1962) at IMDb
• Storyline and key dialogue excerpts
• The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", by John D. Marks
• Mind Control: The Rosetta Stone of the JFK Assassination, by Jerry Leonard
• Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists, by Colin A. Ross
• The Perfect Assassin: Lee Harvey Oswald, The CIA and Mind Control, by Jerry Leonard.
• McCarthyism and the Movies

• 1959 books
• 1962 films
• Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominee (film)
• Cold War films
• Film noir
• Films based on mystery books
• Films directed by John Frankenheimer
• Thriller films
• United States National Film Registry
• Political novels