Manchurian Candidate Themes

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The Manchurian Candidate was released in 1962 to a post-McCarthyite America. John Frankenheimer directed The Manchurian Candidate, which featured prominent stars Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, and Laurence Harvey. Frankenheimer’s film is a black and white, neo noir film, meaning it was filmed in monochrome and also employs elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, etc. that were absent in the 1940’s-1950’s, when film noir was popular. The Manchurian Candidate takes place during the last year of the Korean War and the years following it. Near the end of the war, a platoon of United States soldiers is captured and brainwashed but eventually returned home. The film centers around a young man named Raymond Shaw, who is the son of a prominent right-wing family and has unknowingly become an assassin in an …show more content…
Although Shaw’s tale of conspiracy seems, at times, to reaffirm McCarthyite concerns, the work as a whole is seen as a parody of the McCarthy right and the Red Scare.
Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate was adapted from Richard Condon’s 1959 novel, also entitled The Manchurian Candidate; much like Condon’s novel, Frankenheimer’s film enjoyed favorable reception upon its release with an audience that had recently lived through McCarthy’s witch hunt trials. The film boasted a complex plot to viewers, insisting that they must not miss the first five minutes of the movie if they hope to understand the rest of the film. The Manchurian Candidate received positive ratings from most
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