[7]

Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey star as returning prisoners of war who have been unwittingly hypnotized to become sleeper agents for Communist China in the American political arena. Whenever either man sees the Queen of Hearts from a deck of playing cards, they are compelled to obey the next order they receive from anyone. But while the men are being used like pawns by shadowy forces, they’re also having nightmares that threaten to lift the veil on their brainwashing. John Frankenheimer directs this adaptation of the novel by Richard Condon, and boy is it a dense tale. If you can wind your way around the twisty-turny plotting, the film provides a satisfying (and now famous) resolution — albeit a very cynical one.

Angela Lansbury is the shining star of The Manchurian Candidate, playing a Joseph McCarthyesque cutthroat reactionary — probably the most evil performance you’ve ever seen from Ms Lansbury. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast leave me pretty cold. Frank Sinatra has never done anything for me. I think he only had a film career because the mob made it happen. I mean, he sucks, right? Am I the only one who thinks so? Laurence Harvey is equally dull. Warmer personalities would have helped sustain the calculated plotting. Things are especially trying when Sinatra and Harvey are forced into tacked on romantic subplots with Janet Leigh and Leslie Parrish.

Apart from Lansbury’s performance, the highlight of the film is an early sequence in which the communists demonstrate the effectiveness of their hypnotist treatment of the POWs before an audience of other communist officials, all while the POWs believe they’re at a tea party with a gaggle of old British ladies. Frankenheimer does a skillful job blending the two realities in the sequence, which ends horrifically when one brainwashed POW is asked to kill another.

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury), Best Film Editing