During the Korean War, Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), and the rest of their squad are sent out on a mission. Their guide and translator is Chunjin (Henry Silva). Chunjin turns the men in. They are captured and taken across the border to Manchuria. Over a three day period the men are subject to brainwashing by the Soviets and Chinese.
The troops are secretly released and return to America with the story that their lives were saved by Shaw. They all tell the same story, and Shaw is awarded the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of all but two of the men. Shaw’s mother, Mrs. Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury) uses the ceremony as a photo op for her husband and Shaw’s stepfather, John Iselin (James Gregory). John is a politician who is trying, with the help of Eleanor, to become the next Vice President, a mere steppingstone to the presidency.
Marco gets promoted to Major and is assigned to Army Intelligence. Marco becomes increasingly agitated by a reoccurring nightmare. In the dream he witnesses Shaw kill two of his own men as proof to the Communists that the brainwashing succeeded. Marco finds out that another soldier, Allen Melvin (James Edwards) has been having similar dreams. Marco convinces Army Intelligence to investigate when both he and Melvin identify two of the men who were part of the brainwashing.
The investigation reveals that the men were all subject to mind control but Raymond was targeted as a sleeper agent and was created to take down the government from within. Marco’s task it to find out if Raymond is pre-coded to assassinate someone or if he is being controlled along the way by an American handler. He also must find out what Raymond’s mission is and if he can be stopped by an attempt to un-program him.
“The Manchurian Candidate” was released in 1962 and was directed by John Frankenheimer. It is a cold-war psychological thriller. The film was based on the 1959 book by Richard Condon.
Although top billing is given to Sinatra, Harvey and Leigh, it’s Lansbury as the evil sociopathic Eleanor Iselin that steals the movie. Her manipulative and power hungry traits are augmented by her incestual relationship with Raymond. Still she is willing to sacrifice her son to gain what she wants. Since she can’t directly go after what she desires she is determined to be the power behind the throne. It is unknown what her relationship with Raymond’s father was like, but in her current marriage she is the domineering factor. Senator Iselin is nothing more than very stupid window dressing.
There are some plot holes and red herrings that take away some of the intelligence of the story but much of that is made up for by the strange and fascinating depiction of the brainwashing sequences. The surrealism of those scenes emphasizes the subjects’ lack of ability to think clearly. They see and hear only what they are told and perform on command to whatever their handler orders them to say or do. If you are told you’re at a garden party, then that’s where you are.
The film’s narration was done by actor Paul Frees.
In 1994, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".