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Thursday, January 30, 2014

A Candidate That For Awhile Stopped Running


The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Sees Into Frightful Future

A Chinese Communist plot hatched during the Korea war comes within hairbreadth of successful US takeover, brainwashed servicemen its unwitting pawns. The Manchurian Candidate could, and probably was, taken as satire when it was new, like a following year's Dr. Strangelove, but events of 11/63 sucked humor out, and from there, Manchurian stood as early alarm to political/societal breakdown ahead. Its being tough (for a while) to re-see The Manchurian Candidate enhanced the aura. The set-up won't bear much scrutiny. You have to want to believe Manchurian's outlandish premise. If the Chinese had really been up to tricks like this, we'd long since have been in their net. There's sure not reassurance that US intelligence was on the job, what with infiltration so easily accomplished as here.

Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey Take Lunch Break on Location

How confused were first-run audiences by The Manchurian Candidate? Many said that the pic was "ahead of its time," which meant lots could make heads nor tails of the thing when new. Communists as patient and far-ahead planners did give us pause, and the idea they could plant an emissary in the White House seemed not so far-fetched in light of top-level spies oft-exposed during 50's run-up to The Manchurian Candidate. There's not comfort at the end, every indication that others in Laurence Harvey's squad are ongoing agency for puppet-masters who need only pull strings and move on to Plan B. Even Frank Sinatra's end summation leaves us figuring he'll be next to load an assault rifle and aim same at elected officials. The Manchurian Candidate earned $3.1 million in domestic rentals and less than half that from foreign ($1.5), but careers got a boost for the critical fave this was. Part-owning Frank later got sore at United Artists for their handling of The Manchurian Candidate and this as much as controversy over content kept it out of wider circulation for part of his remaining lifetime.

2 Comments:

Blogger Kevin K. said...

I caught this when it was re-released in the early 90s, and again a few years later on PBS. For the life of me, I can't understand how anyone could view this as a satire. To me, it's pretty scary, whether or not it's believable, and poignant -- Laurence Harvey's character never had a chance. I really find it a very sad movie.

Having said that, what also struck me seeing in a theatre was that the sound seemed to come from the screen, like it used to in the pre-multichannel stereo days of my youth. Having gotten used to music and SFX coming from all around me with most movies, it was like a trip back in time.

5:43 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Donald Benson considers international villainy as practiced through the years on screen heroes:


Don't mind me. Just babbling.


I mentally flashed on "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror", where a British nobleman is exposed as a German double -- switched in when the original was captured in the previous war decades earlier. Holmes had a line to the effect the calculating Germans anticipated a specific future need, which suggests a German spy biding his time as a respected government figure while waiting for the Nazi party to come into existence, take over Germany and eventually target England.


For a while after WWII it seemed the last-gasp Nazi plot was a standard fallback. The sleeper cell, the thickly-accented scientist with an undeployed superweapon, or simply some Nazi loot pursued by former intimates of Adolf. The gimmick lingered on to the German-accented agents of KAOS on "Get Smart."


Also remember there was an on-and-off queasiness about actually naming China or the USSR as the enemy, at least in lighter movies. Benny Hill did a Bond parody where his boss would delicately reference "a certain unnamed foreign power". Each time, Benny would turn to the camera and announce "Russia!", as if he'd cleverly solved a mystery. An Italian scifi potboiler featured some Asian spies who spent much of their screen time explaining they weren't Chinese (added in translation?). If you were going to actually name Russia or China, it usually had to be in the context of a darn serious film


In the real Bonds, the Russians and Chinese were rarely the direct villains. They might employ a Goldfinger to do some dirty work; more often they'd be manipulated themselves by SPECTRE, a non-ideological gang with corporate trappings. This remained the rule through the Roger Moore period, with the occasional independent megalomaniac stepping in. By the time Roger left, the Bonds were almost friendly towards Russia ("View to a Kill" has Russia being dependent on Silicon Valley for technological progress -- it's presented as a gag). By then we rarely heard about "Red China" at all.


Given a choice (and lacking a clearly-defined war), Hollywood historically preferred made-up villains. Mafias that aren't quite THE Mafia; Arab terrorists of imprecise origin or creed; military or intelligence types clearly stamped "rogue"; and of course the apolitical baddies grabbing something "to sell to the highest bidder".



The current series of Marvel Comics movies & shows have HYDRA, which more or less replaced the Nazis in the WWII-set "Captain America" and lingers on as the successor to SPECTRE.

8:31 AM  

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