The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Had wanted to see the film for a long time (had seen the remake), but was amazed how *awful* it was when I finally saw it. The only redeeming quality is Frank Sinatra's performace. He proves he's not only a gifted singer, but also a good actor.
My biggest complaint with the film is that the supposedly threatening Chinese and Russian communist villains who brainwash our heroes are looking and acting like the stereotypes you see in Disney's and Warner's WWII cartoons. Great if you're watching a cartoon, but if it's a political thriller/drama, you better create believable characters. It's like the writers and director believe in Cold War propaganda so much themselves, that they decided to turn the communist villains into cardboard stock figures. The result is laughable and as a result undermines the entire film.
This review on IMDb sums up my thoughts exactly:
There is a reverence surrounding this film that is difficult for the casual viewer to comprehend. It might have been revolutionary for its time, but IMDb users who describe it as timeless seem to have undergone a brainwashing scheme themselves.
The plot holes are large and plentiful and some of the acting is diabolical. The story, of a soldier transformed by hypnosis into a murderous automaton, is interesting enough in a B-movie kind of way, but the sheer volume of narrative leaps would test the patience of any modern viewer.
Several key scenes are literally incredible. Frank Sinatra meets Janet Leigh on a train and five minutes later, without any warmth on Frank's side, she decides that she is going to leave her fiancé for him.
Leslie Parrish, playing the leading character's lover, chooses to wear a fancy dress costume that, by sheer coincidence, is the hypnotic trigger to send him into a trance. The likelihood of her wearing a Queen of Diamonds costume is so low that I assumed she must be in on the hypnotist's conspiracy, but it was just a bizarre red herring.
Other irritations include the buffoonery of John Yerkes Iselin, the main character's stepfather, who wins the nomination for the vice presidency despite being a hopeless drunk. What was presumably intended as satire merely undermines the plot.
And in the final scene, the security at the auditorium where the climactic assassination is due to take place is so lax that any old hit-man could have done it. The evil communists' scheme to groom someone who could get near the presidential candidate was unnecessary, if not counterproductive. If a presidential candidate were to be killed, would the public really support the vice-presidential co-runner if they knew his stepson was the assassin?
As for the innovative fight scene, it is terribly unconvincing by today's standards and can't have been that good even in 1962. Henry Silva, Sinatra's kung fu adversary, is downright awful, but even his acting looks Oscar-worthy compared to James Edwards's wooden turn as a spooked GI.
The good news, however, is that Jonathan Demme's remake is excellent. The 1962 version is an interesting historical document, but it doesn't work as a thriller.
).
