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Denzel Washington as Major Ben Marco.
the manchurian candidate
DESPERATELY STRUGGLING TO HOLD ONTO HIS SANITY, DENZEL WASHINGTON’S CHARACTER
IN THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE SLOWLY BEGINS TO REALISE THAT REALITY IS WORSE THAN ANYTHING IN HIS RECURRING
NIGHTMARES. ELEANOR SINGER LOOKS AT A VERY UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF A CLASSIC TALE.
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In 1991, Tina Sinatra, the crooner’s youngest daughter, asked her father whether he thought that The Manchurian Candidate would work for a modern audience. The film, first released in 1962, contained one of her father’s most memorable (and distinctly non-singing) screen roles. The plot revolved around brainwashing (had the Chinese planted a hidden command in the head of a former platoon sergeant?) but it doubled as a political satire, coming just as the Eisenhower era began to evolve into the sixties.
Tina’s question was both personal and a matter of business. Sinatra Sr owned the rights to the film, so his opinion on the viability of a possible remake would not only be useful: it was essential. “He said he thought it was smart and would have greater appeal today,” recalls Tina. But it took another 13 years - and five years after Frank’s death - before production started on the film. By then, the war in Iraq was echoing the Gulf War (which is what prompted Frank’s comment about greater appeal), giving further resonance - and an added sense of threat - to the story.
“What’s most important to me,” insists Tina, “is retaining the human stories that are so crucial to a film like this. The humanity of it is timeless; but updating the film’s battle to the Gulf War makes a lot of sense as well, especially considering how politically pertinent that part of the world is today.”
The original movie, based on a cold war novel by Richard Condon and a classic screenplay by George Axelrod, was directed by John Frankenheimer and dealt with the aftermath of the Korean war, telling the story of two GIs - Sinatra and Laurence Harvey - who have been brainwashed and sent back with a lethal order buried deep in their brain cells, waiting for the right trigger to activate it and thus change the course of American history. This becomes especially dangerous once Harvey’s character, manipulated by his ambitious mother (a powerhouse performance by Angela Lansbury), moves to the heart of the political establishment.
The original movie was several years ahead of its time and almost a decade before the heyday of ‘political paranoia’ movies like The Parallax View. “It is,” remarked Axelrod acidly at the time, “a film which went from failure to classic without ever passing through success.”
POWER PLAYERS
Next page, Liev Schreiber as candidate Raymond Shaw. Above, Shaw’s mother, Senator Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep) with Manchurian execs Jude Ciccolella (left) and Dean Stockwell (right).
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