The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The movie belongs to Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, and Angela Lansbury. No one else matters.

Fun fact: Angela Lansbury was 3 years old when she gave birth to Laurence Harvey.

R2 At least she got to kiss him. Harvey was an attractive man.

Based on the horseshit pseudoscientific meme that you can brainwash people through subliminal cues.

Laurence Harvey, born 1928, was fucking Hermione Baddeley, born in 1905.

I'm jealous af

I'm surprised this thread hasn't gained more traction.

The first time I saw it was for a high school class and we all laughed at it. I remember another teacher coming in to watch it with us and he saw our English teacher's face full of disappointment, and he said to her "They're too young to get camp" and I didn't even know what he meant. Young and stupid.

R7 lol it is such a good movie. When it was rereleased in 1987 people flocked to the theatre again.

What was originally surreal and sci-fi about the book and the movie became, over time, real. We did enter an age of assassination; the Republican Party became a tool of Russia and authoritarianism. I guess it was all in the cards (so to speak).

Who played the mother better -- Angela Lansbury or Meryl Streep?

[quote]The movie belongs to Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, and Angela Lansbury. No one else matters.

Actually the scene where Janet Leigh and Frank Sinatra first meet (on a train, if I remember right) is pretty interesting. But then she has nothing to do after that.

How nice you've discovered something that we all know about already.

Really no need to prove yourself, OP, by spattering out names and plot.

We know.

All informed, engaged and film-art-loving people do.

Helen Kleeb, aka Blanche's mother on "The Golden Girls" and one of the Baldwin Sisters on "The Waltons" was truly spooky as the "motherly figure" the prisoners of war saw when being brainwashed.

Angela Lansbury was divine in this. Evil as hell.

R10 Angela Lansbury

comeuppance

Lansbury's name doesn't even appear in the trailer.

R17 Her name should have been before the title, I agree

[quote]When it was rereleased in 1987 people flocked to the theatre again.

But not when it was remade in 2004.

R19 It's an okay movie.

I showed it to my roommate from India and he rolled his eyes and said it was an anti-Red scare movie. The Indians have a special bond with Russia and think of it differently than we do.

The book was enthralling, and the movie was very good, but it was a darn shame that they didn't make Angela Lansbury's role in all that a surprise. That was a real shocker in the book, which just has an unknown voice on the other end of the phone suggesting he pass the time by playing a little solitaire--until near the end.

Although I'm old enough to have seen the original film and read the book, I've somehow never done either.

At this point, would it be best to start with the book, the original film or the 2004 remake? Is the latter film any good - it's kind of what I'm most interested in as I never cared much for Sinatra or Harvey (loved Lansbury on Broadway though).

If you don't like Laurence Harvey, I'd suggest you start with the book.

R13, one of the grim jokes in the movie is that the prisoners are in different garden parties. The Black soldier who has nightmare flashbacks doesn’t see Kleeb; he’s in a greenhouse filled with Black church-lady types. Americans, by implication, are segregated even in their hallucinations.

I think it's also a reference to how divide-and-conquer types have always made use of America's race relations as a way to stir up unrest. The Socialist Party of the 1930s-1950s famously caused race riots to stir things up; Russian propaganda used a lot of race relations rhetoric to show America's bad side; the Republicans by the time of the novel was starting to cater to the racist Southerners and in a few years would embrace the Southern Strategy.

Angela Lansbury gives a tour de force performance

I love the film with Denzel Washington and Meryl.

Amram's haunting theme is also excellent. The entire score is always in my rotation.

OP is so young.

I saw it for the first time about 25 years ago on the Castro Theater's big screen. I thought it was amazing, and it still holds up. The opening scene alone is incredible.

The conspiracy theory that Sirhan Sirhan, was brainwashed by the US government, probably originated from this book and movie. When I was in my conspire theory phase, that was one theory.

Henry Silva, the Spanish-Italian actor who just died, played a Korean spy in the movie.

r33 Is that so wrong?

Ir12 too bad you’re a dick

Laurence Harvey was gorgeous

OK, OP -- so you discovered a good political movie. Yippee! Now may I suggest Fail-Safe, Seven Days in May, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?

You're welcome.

The novel was good but the Sinatra movie was so excellent the book paled in comparison. That doesn't often happen. Frank's best non-musical work.

It was an interesting choice to make Khigh Dhiegh the most likeable character in the film.

Sinatra pulled it from release in the aftermath of the JFK assassination.

R38 That's a myth that's been debunked.

Angela Lansbury was a cold hard bitch

Laurence Harvey was bi, and a slut. he was also a well known gigolo. He was "married" to women, but lived with his manager. He also gigoloed for the widow Cohn , and beat Tab Hunter to the marriage punch. He had a daughter, who was the real "DOMINO"

R36, good recs

Laurence was very hot with Michael Craig in several movies. They had great chemistry

Michael and Larry share a hot shower scene after their boxing match in LIFE AT THE TOP. very sexy

Michael and Larry in THE SILENT ENEMY

[quote]Laurence Harvey, born 1928, was fucking Hermione Baddeley, born in 1905.

[quote]I'm jealous af

Of whom R5, Hermione or Laurence? Because i think Hermione would be the top in that relationship...

In all his movies with Laurence Harvey, Michael plays gay or bi. In SILENT ENEMY he plays gay Leading Seaman Knowles , in LIFE AT THE TOP he's "the irresistible Mark, who was in love with a boy at Eton"

i also really like his BOND style movie A DANDY IN ASPIC with Mia in all her 60s glory

And , of course, the immortal NIGHT WATCH . you get to see his scrawny ass in that one

he had a penchant for driving hags off cliffs. He dumps Signoret in ROOM AT THE TOP, she drives herself off a cliff. He dumps Taylor in BUTTERFIELD 8, she drives herself off a cliff. All the originality of Hollywood's scriptwriters

Wonderful in DARLING. but then again, everyone is, in that underappreciated gem

classic

I love how Angela Lansbury isn't even mentioned in the trailer. And she was the only member of the cast that got an Oscar nomination.

sinatra had a hit on her

Sinatra called Harvey "ladyboy" to his face. He was a regular in the Sinatras household

That movie is a masterpiece.

Probably so as not to give too much away, r53.

Nice little bit of movie trivia. That private luxury airliner Harvey's evil parents use early in the film was Sinatra's personal plane he loaned to the production.

Angela should have won.

Frank Sinatra's butler, George Jacobs, wrote in his autobiography that Laurence Harvey was always rather aggressively coming on to him. And, yeah, Frank knew he was gay.

he had it all

Laurence Harvey was hot

It is The Manchurian Candidate!

[quote] No one else matters.

Untrue. Khigh Dhiegh as the Chinese doctor who brainwashed Harvey and Joe Adams as the psychiatrist who advised Sinatra stole the scenes they were in.

[quote]Who played the mother better -- Angela Lansbury or Meryl Streep?

Ooh! Ooh! Call on me! I know this one!

[quote]Wonderful in DARLING. but then again, everyone is, in that underappreciated gem

"Underappreciated?"

John Frankenheimer, the director of The Manchurian Candidate, wanted to direct The Day of the Jackal. Ultimately it was directed by Fred Zinnemann and featured Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale and Eric Porter.

R64, Later to be the recurring villain Wo Fat in "Hawaii 5-O."

[quote] Wo Fat in "Hawaii 5-O."

Woah!

Bumping this film up, given the Lansbury thread