Rent The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

A superb cat-and-mouse psychological thriller - The Manchurian Candidate review by SG

Released in 1962, this political thriller really gets under your skin. One year on from this film's opening, JFK died and its leading actor, Frank Sinatra, bought the rights to this picture and took it out of circulation - you will see why when you watch the ending. This movie was then not released until nearly 30 years later - only then was it shown in all its black and white glory. Laurence Harvey is excellent as the disturbed Korean war hero who can't understand why everyone loves him as he knows deep down they hate him. Soon enough, his whole platoon start having flashback nightmares from their tour of duty and it's up to Frank Sinatra's character to work out why. Throw into the mix a scheming conniving mother (Angela Lansbury) who wants unadulterated political power and you have yourself a conspiracy theory. Even Janet Leigh, fresh from Psycho two years earlier, is excellent as the girlfriend of ol' blue eyes.

This is an outstanding film. Just don't even think about playing Solitaire…

WOMEN 'R' US - The Manchurian Candidate review by Frank Talker™

Brilliant psychological conspiracy-thriller about a combined Sino-Soviet attempt to get a hardcore communist elected as the President of the USA, carefully disguised as a virulent anti-communist.

The performances are all superb, the direction taut & the writing focused - there is a genuine determination here to make the somewhat absurd premiss literally-plausible rather than just metaphorically-believable. It works.

Of particular note are the three distinctively-different female characters whom represent either destroyers of men or their saviours. Angela LANSBURY is terrifying as Laurence HARVEY's domineering mother; Janet LEIGH is delightfully-slutty as the woman whom quickly discards her fiancé after meeting a man on a train whom looks a lot like Frank SINATRA; &, Leslie PARRISH is brilliantly funny as the delightful ingénue whom Laurence HARVEY marries.

An excellent companion-piece to The Candidate (1972), wherein Western democracies tend to elect leaders whom do not truly represent voter aspirations.

Queen of Hearts - and Bile - The Manchurian Candidate review by CH

Has there ever been a film with so large an uncredited cast which finds itself moving between dream - or, rather, nightmare - and reality in the aftermath of the Korean War when, come the early-Sixties, a veteran of it, Laurence Harvey is programmed to assassinate politicians? From Richard Condon's novel, here is also an unlikely but credible mixture of Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. They have but one brief scene in which neither is aware of the other. Say no more, as her son Harvey goes about his task, and Sinatra becomes aware of what's afoot.. Add in two women of similar looks - Janet Leigh and the lesser-known but accomplished Leslie Parrish - and one finds the wild card of love adding to trouble ahead heralded by a pack of cards in which the Queen of Hearts ever looms.

Strange to think all this - realistic and fantastic - lasts more than two hours. A series of scenes, well-nigh set pieces,with wonderful photography, light and shadow matching the continual subterfuge, as everything past and present sits together, keeping one guessing until the very last minutes (these feature an earlier incarnation of Madison Square Garden). All of which prompt one to watch again Suddenly, a smaller-scale work in which Sinatra is mired in a killing spree. He was a better actor than many realise. Naturally, he appears at home whenever events here conspire to land him in a bar - and this disc has an extra in which he discusses the way in which a great brawl was staged. It looks as though a table fell apart in the course of events rather than being scored through to speed that crash. This is but one of the many details meticulously prepared which make so large scale a work curiously, even Oedipally intimate.