Underplayed Gems

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate poster
Directed by
John Frankenheimer
Genre
drama film, film noir, war film, spy film, thriller film, political thriller film
Country
United States
Runtime
2h 06m
Rated
PG-13
Rating
7.5 of 10 from 816 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

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How it feels

A Korean War veteran returns home to a prominent political family. He was brainwashed by communists after his platoon was captured. An unwitting assassin is now part of a plot to overthrow the U.S. government.

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What happens

The Manchurian Candidate is a 1962 American neo-noir political thriller film directed and produced by John Frankenheimer. The screenplay is by George Axelrod, based on the 1959 Richard Condon novel The Manchurian Candidate. The film's leading actors are Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh, with co-stars Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, and James Gregory. The plot centers on Korean War veteran Raymond Shaw, part of a prominent political family. Shaw is brainwashed by communists after his Army platoon is captured. He returns to civilian life in the United States, where he becomes an unwitting assassin in an international communist conspiracy. The group, which includes representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, plans to assassinate the presidential nominee of an American political party, with the death leading to the overthrow of the U.S. government. The film was released in the United States on October 24, 1962, at the height of U.S.–Soviet hostility during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was widely acclaimed by Western critics and was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury) and Best Editing. Lansbury also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. It was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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