The Manchurian Candidate –(major spoilers) --------------------------------------------- Mother knows best- just ask Oedipus, Cristina Crawford, Norman Bates, and Raymond Shaw. --------------------------------------------- -remake- 2004 directed by J. Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) -original-1962 directed by John Frankenheimer (Black Sunday) -novel by Richard Condon (Prizzi's Honor) Bone-a-rama rating: ------------------- Novel 4 of 4, raging boner Original: 4 of 4, raging boner Remake: 1 of 4, the organ in repose The original movie is #68 out of imdb.com's user-voted top 250 movies of all time. It is a political thriller in which a group of American soldiers is captured and brainwashed. One becomes a programmed killing machine at the hands of greedy and brutal individuals. He should experience no memory of his deeds, therefore no guilt complex to give him away. The other men should also have no memories (other than the ones implanted), but what about those deuced nightmares? Of course, the remake is nowhere as good as the original movie and the original is nowhere as good as the book. However, the original film is quite true to the book and captures much of the book's sardonic style and political satire. The main difference between the original movie and the book is the ending, and I must say that I actually prefer the ending of the movie mainly because it allows Raymond some sort of dignity and redemption via the vehicle of free will. In the book, he remains a pawn until the moment of his death, merely shifting from his mother's hand to Ben Marco's. Richard Condon has a keen and cutting writing style which makes it great for political satire and dark topics. He invented "Condon's Law" = "When you don't know the whole truth, the worst you can imagine is bound to be close". The original film has many memorable moments. During the most famous scene, when the soldiers are being brainwashed, the camera pans in a full circle, the hosts changing from garden party ladies to communist brass and back again. The scene is simultaneously absurd and nightmarish. The solitaire trigger and card symbolism are also well done (not present in the remake). Also, when Jordan is shot, the bullet hits a carton of milk that he is holding and pours out in an arc as he dies, crumpling to the floor in disbelief. The camera pans from Johnny Iselin hitting the bottom of a Heinz 57 ketchup bottle over his plate to him saying into a press conference microphone that there are exactly 57 card-carrying communists in the defense department cabinet. (Do Communists actually carry cards? What for?). And of course Iselinism=McCarthyism. Angela Lansbury does such a good job in the role of Raymond's mother that nobody notices that she is only three years older than Laurence Harvey. The fight scene between Chunjin and Marco is cheesy Kato-style fun, though was apparently harder-core since Sinatra broke his hand during the scene. It is also interesting that shortly after the release of this film that JFK was assassinated and Sinatra bought the rights to the film and kept it out of circulation for 24 years. Why? Because he was JFK's good bud or to build up the film's mystique for its re-release? At any rate, Sinatra's performance is solid and probably his best, though The Man With the Golden Arm is up there. Also, notably, several of the agents (Khigh Dhieg and Albert Paulsen went on to play villain roles in Hawaii Five-O (OK, I admit I'm old, though I wonder when they are going to remake THAT). The remake is not a total rehash. In the remake, the roles of Senator Johnny Iselin, Raymond Shaw, Eleanor Iselin, and Ben Marco are switched around in an interesting way. Also, the motivation of Raymond's mother is significant. In the book and original movie, she has requested a programmed killer but does not know that Raymond will be used. She gives a passionate speech where she vows revenge saying, "… when I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you and for what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me". In the remake, Raymond's mother set him up; she believed that on his own, he was not living up to his full potential. It is interesting and scary to see how the tale can be told in any time frame as the scenario changes from the Korean War in the original to Desert Storm in the remake and how the "bad guy" role changes from The Commies to The Evil Corporation (see the films "Super Size Me" and "The Corporation"). Though I must say that the remake loses something as it transitions toward being a typical conspiracy film. The impact of the film is lessened by the device of the mechanical implant. It is much scarier to know that people can be controlled by emotional manipulation. The remake also loses something with the "Running Man" ending, though it is appropriate for the film. Isn't the media running a conspiracy on the public by fabricating truth? How scary is that and how paranoid does that make the audience? How often is this happening and how often am I buying into it? Also, with this type of ending, the focus is taken off the torment of the soul of Raymond Shaw and instead focuses on making the Bad corporation pay for its insolence. I prefer for the focus of the result to be the ultimate destruction of the individual rather than the financial ruin of a bunch of corporate dickheads. Didn't make me feel any less bitter about WorldCom :). The best things about the remake are that the Eugenie Rose character is beefed up and Al Franken appears in some Robocop-style media coverage.