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Harvey is competent but never seems completely convincing as an American GI. Sinatra gives a reasoned and in many ways more mature performance than he has ever done before.
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In the more realistic portions, there is terse character exposition and propulsion. The direction and acting are good, so interest is maintained. Frankeheimer’s handling of the early sequences, in which he attempts and succeeds in creating on film the corruption of the mind, is imaginative filmmaking. Phillips Oppenheim and Somerset Maugham (the Ashenden Stories), it is perhaps defensible. It is too bad, too, because not all this detail is essential to the story. senator - is disclosed as a top Soviet agent, when killing is piled on killing - four murders and one suicide - it will be for many stretching credulity to the breaking point. In the final stretch, when Harvey’s mother - wife of a U.S. The Soviet spy apparatus, no doubt, as any espionage machinery, would be amazing to most simple citizens, so a broad scope of speculation is legitimate. Axelrod’s screenplay, however, uses more than is really necessary. The story gets into murky areas in its development. His final rebellion provides the climax to the story. with other squad members, he has become, under certain conditions, an automaton responding slavishly to orders from Soviet agents. Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey are two such servicemen, members of a squad forced to undergo the involuntary psychological indoctrination. production is being released by United Artists.īased on a book by Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate is taken from reports of brainwashing by Chinese communists of U.S. George Axelrod and John Frankenheimer produced, with Frankenheimer directing Axelrod’s screenplay. The premise is somewhat far-fetched, and its development strains belief in the final sequences, but accepting it on its own terms it sustains interest. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:Ī suspense melodrama with political background, exploring and exploiting some dramatic projections of communist brainwashing, The Manchurian Candidate is tautly made, with strong box office potential. 24, 1962, political thriller The Manchurian Candidate hit theaters, eventually earning two Oscar noms at the 35th Academy Awards, hosted by the film’s star Frank Sinatra.
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“Classy, credible docudrama… a movie that is both true to its period and relevant to present-day America.On Oct. “STUNNING! Brilliantly orchestrated and seriously respectful…” Murrow blows smoke columns as he takes on menacing Red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy, playing himself via archival footage (test audiences thought the “actor” overdid it). (2005, George Clooney) David Strathairn as legendary newsman Edward R. – Tom Huddleston, Time Out (London) GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK “A sensational piece of genre filmmaking: pacy, compelling, witty and cynical, it depicts, in unflinching detail, the beginning of the end for post-war American optimism.” A powerful experience, alternately corrosive with dark parodic humor, suspenseful, moving, and terrifying.” Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey, both brilliantly cast, have never been better Sinatra and Janet Leigh have never been used as weirdly and the talented secondary cast is never less than effective.
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“One of the strangest and most mercurial movies ever made in Hollywood…this exciting black-and-white cold war thriller runs more than two hours and never flags for an instant…It's conceivably the only commercial American film that deserves to be linked with the French New Wave, full of visual and verbal wit that recalls Orson Welles.
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“A daring, funny, and far-out thriller…This picture plays some wonderful, crazy games May be the most sophisticated political satire ever to come out of Hollywood.” “THE KING OF COLD WAR COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY THRILLERS. (1962, John Frankenheimer) A brain-washer orders Korean War POW Laurence Harvey to waste a politico at a Madison Square Garden convention – to clear the way for a brainless stooge for those Commies – but fellow ex-vet Frank Sinatra reshuffles those cards.