Produced during the high water mark of Cold War tensions, The Manchurian Candidate is an indelible political thriller and one of the most trenchant American films made about the conflict. Frank Sinatra stars as an army major who unlocks a bizarre conspiracy tied to his service in Korea, and the men he served with. What unfolds is a paranoiac masterpiece, Oedipal tragedy, and perhaps the greatest film ever made about brainwashing. Angela Lansbury features, in a piercing Oscar-nominated performance, as the craven, power-hungry wife of a McCarthyite Senator.
“It may be the most sophisticated political satire ever made in Hollywood.” – Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
“The Manchurian Candidate is inventive and frisky, takes enormous chances with the audience, and plays not like a “classic” but as a work as alive and smart as when it was first released.” – Roger Ebert
“Every once in a rare while a film comes along that works in all departments, with story, production and performance so well blended that the end effect is one of nearly complete satisfaction. Such is The Manchurian Candidate, George Axelrod and John Frankenheimer’s jazzy, hip screen translation of Richard Condon’s bestselling novel.” – Vincent Canby, Variety
