Heinz 57

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Manchurian Candidate" is one of the strangest, eeriest Hollywood films ever made, all the more so for starring Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and the late Laurence Harvey. I can't say for sure what it is ultimately about but I will say that it is about as paranoid and nightmarish as any film on politics I've ever seen.

Frank Sinatra is Major Bennett Marco, a member of the Korean patrol that has just arrived in the United States. The Korean War is over yet a new war seems to be brewing in the United States, specifically Communism. Marco's superior, Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), has just won a Congressional Medal of Honor though he does not seem appreciative of it. Instead of working with his stepfather, Senator Iselin (James Gregory), Raymond opts to work for a newspaper in New York. You see, Raymond hates his mother, Mrs. Iselin (Angela Lansbury), and the Commie-hating senator. But Raymond can't seem to get away from the war or his own nightmares, especially one where he is hypnotized to kill members of his patrol. This just might seem a surrealistic nightmare drawn from repercussions of fighting in a war, but the other members of the patrol are having the same nightmare. Maj. Marco wants to investigate further, realizing that he feels hypnotized for having called his superior the warmest, kindest man ever - a man he clearly detests.

It turns out that Raymond is a trained, brainwashed assassin, and when he plays Solitaire and sees the Queen of Diamonds, he is instantly in a robotic, killing phase. To add even more complexity, Ray's mother, Mrs. Iselin, is behind it all - she wants her son to kill the Democratic presidential candidate and continue the war on communism. The mother is the grand manipulator, even convincing her husband, the McCarthy-like senator, to arrive at a reasonable figure of how many Commies are in Congress. 57 is the most likely number, thanks to a Heinz ketchup bottle.

The most famous sequence in the film is the actual nightmare, shown three different times. We see the Korean patrol seated, all looking dejected and listless. We also see the Chinese Communist hypnotist telling the soldiers what acts of murder to commit. A host of party officials are seen in the audience. But then director John Frankenheimer does a clever thing - he crosscuts between the hypnotist and a gardening lecture full of women, as if both are in the same room speaking the same words to the same patrol. If anything were to suggest the antecedents to the surreal world of David Lynch, this would be it.

There is also another strange sequence between Maj. Marco and the mysterious Rosie (Janet Leigh). They meet in a train headed to New York. He is unable to light a cigarette. She offers to help and they start a conversation about different states like Ohio and Delaware. At one point, he asks her, "Are you Arabic?" She says no. Huh? This is supposedly explained in the Richard Condon book, but I think it pinpoints Marco's own declining sense of reality, maybe increased disorientation. After all, can Raymond be the only one who was truly brainwashed?

The first-rate performances all lend the necessary credibility to the proceedings. Frank Sinatra, in his most powerful role, is a commanding presence, always direct and authoritative as the major. Janet Leigh lends a touch of class and something almost preternatural as Rosie. Laurence Harvey is like some sickly, grow-up Catholic schoolboy, unaware how he is being used and abused. But it is truly Angela Lansbury who rises above as the frigid, domineering, stifling Mrs. Iselin, completely understated and chilling in her demeanor. She is certainly one of the great villainesses of American cinema.

"The Manchurian Candidate" was released in 1962 but was then pulled out of circulation by Frank Sinatra, who was one of the producers, because the film barely made enough profit. It was then re-released in 1988. Some have alluded this film to the Kennedy assassination as proof that maybe Lee Harvey Oswald did act alone. I find it is a polemic of its times, yet it is also as relevant today as it was then. Yes, communism is no longer a threat and assassinations of presidential candidates are certainly not as common as they were forty years ago. What we have today is a world of nightmarish paranoia, seeking the enemy who remains elusive and invisible and fighting a war on terrorism that seems possibly unwinnable. In the 1960's, the soldiers were brainwashed. Today, as possibly evidenced by the 2004 remake, it is the people who may be brainwashed.