The Manchurian Candidate (film)

The Manchurian Candidate. A 1962 American neo-noir psychological political thriller film directed and produced by John Frankenheimer. The screenplay is by George Axelrod, based on the 1959 Richard Condon novel The Manchurian Candidate.

The film’s leading actors are Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury.

The plot centers on Korean War veteran Raymond Shaw, part of a prominent political family. Shaw is brainwashed by communists after his Army platoon is captured. He returns to civilian life in the U.S., where he becomes an unwitting assassin in an international communist conspiracy.

The group, which includes representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, plans to assassinate the presidential nominee of an American political party, with the death leading to the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The film was released in the U.S. in 1962, at the height of U.S.–Soviet hostility during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was widely acclaimed by Western critics and was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury) and Best Editing.

It was selected in 1994 for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”