The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

This is another film whose title is part of the modern cultural landscape but I don’t think many people have watched it and I don’t think the 2004 remake was very successful either. I watched this somewhat out of a sense of duty and indeed its treatment of the Russians and the Communist Chinese is laughable. Still, I ended up being surprised by how it’s very watchable even by modern standards and even novel in some ways.

During the Korean War, a platoon of US soldiers led by Bennett Marco is captured by Soviets and the Chinese. The surviving members return three days later, praising Raymond Shaw, one of their number, for saving them and killing many of the enemy. For this, he is awarded the Medal of Honor. In reality, they were all brainwashed with Shaw in particular being programmed to unquestioningly obey all orders when activated by a specific trigger. Shaw is especially valuable to the Communists as his stepfather is a US senator. He is also romantically involved with the daughter of another senator. However after returning to America, Marco adjusts poorly as he is plagued by nightmares of what really happened while they were captured. He becomes even more suspicious when he learns that other surviving members of his unit have similar dreams and resolves to uncover the truth though his superiors are skeptical.

Obviously anyone watching this now already knows the plot but even if you didn’t, the film doesn’t try to hide anything from the audience at all. The main characters are of course kept in the dark but the audience is shown exactly what happens both in reality and as the characters are programmed to perceive so there’s no mystery in the film at all. Thankfully this film omits any of the actual brainwashing scenes, having them described only in conversation as involving lights shone into the eyes and drugs. This minimizes the pseudoscientific nonsense behind the process. I do love the scene in which the platoon are shown off to an assembly of Communist leaders. The soldiers are programmed to perceive the events as the meeting of a women horticultural club and one black soldiers perceives all of the women as being black while Marco perceives them as being black. The surreal nature of the scene feels very modern though I understand that it’s adapted directly from the novel. Shaw’s trigger is too simple to be believable but I suppose it makes for good drama.

The execution overall is fairly well done and there are obvious Freudian overtones throughout, with Shaw detesting his mother and yet being utterly dominated by her. Apparently this has been much diluted from the source material which include incestous scenes. I love that Shaw is calm and collected through most of the film while Marco is the one who is harried and on the verge of a breakdown as he wonders if he is the one going crazy. One thing I don’t understand is the character of Eugenia Rose, who as she is played by Janet Leigh, is instantly notable. She appears out of nowhere to provide support for Marco when he is at his lowest and is useful so he has someone to talk to about his suspicions. But her motivations don’t make any sense and her appearance is just too fortuitous to be believable. All signs point to her being another agent involved in the conspiracy but nothing comes of it. From what I read, the character really does become a player in the intrigue in the 2004 remake. It’s also weird why they cast someone with a noticeable British accent as Shaw who is supposed to be the picture perfect all American boy scout.

Even if I did add this to my list to get it out of the way, I found myself rather enjoying it. It’s especially great to see Angela Lansbury being the most dominant and powerful figure in the film. The brainwashing technology used is implausible but at least the plot is comprehensible and makes sense. Modern thrillers nowadays have far more convoluted plots that end up making no sense once you stop and actually work through the logic.

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