Directed by John Frankenheimer • 1962 • United States
Starring Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey
The name John Frankenheimer became forever synonymous with heart-in-the-throat filmmaking when this quintessential sixties political thriller was released. Set in the early fifties, this razor-sharp adaptation of the novel by Richard Condon concerns the decorated U.S. Army sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), who as a prisoner during the Korean War is brainwashed into becoming a sleeper assassin in a Communist conspiracy, and a fellow POW (Frank Sinatra) who slowly uncovers the sinister plot. In an unforgettable performance, Angela Lansbury plays Raymond’s villainous mother, the controlling wife of a witch-hunting anti-Communist senator with his eyes on the White House. The rare film that takes aim at the frenzy of the McCarthy era while also being suffused with its Cold War paranoia, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE remains potent, shocking American moviemaking.
Up Next in Classic Hollywood
-
Seconds
Directed by John Frankenheimer • 1966 • United States
Starring Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John RandolphRock Hudson is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s. SECONDS, directed by John Frankenheimer, concerns a middle-aged banker who, dissatisfi...
-
Suddenly, Last Summer
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz • 1959 • United States, United Kingdom
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery CliftGay panic, incest, and a sprinkling of cannibalism: Tennessee Williams’s one-act southern-gothic shocker gets an appropriately lurid screen adaptation cowritten ...
-
In Cold Blood
Directed by Richard Brooks • 1967 • United States
Starring Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John ForsytheTruman Capote’s best seller, a breakthrough narrative account of real-life crime and punishment, became an equally chilling film in the hands of writer-director Richard Brooks. Cast for their uns...
