The Manchurian Candidate

Factual error: Raymond is equipped with what is described as a high-power Soviet sniper rifle. However, the rifle he uses is actually a Japanese carbine.

Factual error: The movie is set in the mid 1950s, as established by the cars and 48-star American flag cake seen at the party scene. However, the convention hall at Madison Square Garden has 50-star American flags hanging from the ceiling.

Factual error: In the scene when the Senator and Raymond's mother are in the hotel room, the newspaper headline (upside down in the lower right) states that he will address the Senate that day. However, in the next scene when he proclaims there are 57 Communists (based on the Heinz ketchup), there is an uproar in the chamber and he yells "Point of order, Mr. Speaker." The Speaker (of the House) is not in the Senate, he is the head of the House of Representatives.

Deliberate mistake: In Raymond's flashback to "when he was once loved" there is a scene where he is having dinner with the Senator and his daughter. Evidently someone didn't feel that this scene was quite long enough as shot. Raymond picks up a piece of meat on his fork, puts it in his mouth and then begins to laugh. Then he puts the empty fork back into his mouth, removes the piece of meat and replaces it onto his plate. Obviously, the film was reversed briefly to give the illusion of a longer scene.

Audio problem: At the end of the movie when the helicopter is flying into the area where the army team was held, the radio transmissions you hear are not aircraft pilots or controllers. You are listening to railroad dispatchers and trackside detectors.

Continuity mistake: As an unconscious member of the captured American patrol is being carried on a stretcher to a Russian helicopter, his helmet falls off the stretcher onto the ground. In the very next shot, the soldier's helmet is now not only on his head, it is tightly strapped to his chin.

Other mistake: When Raymond shoots Senator Jordan, his first shot penetrates the carton of milk that Jordan is holding in his left hand. From Raymond's perspective, that carton of milk is positioned over Jordan's upper left arm; so, the first shot should have merely wounded Jordan in the left bicep, hardly a mortal wound. But Jordan's eyes roll up and he collapses as if shot in the heart.

Charles Austin Miller

Character mistake: During the press conference the Secretary of Defense yells at Senator Iselin "Where is the Sergeant-at-Arms? Throw that man of out here!" The problem is that "Sergeant-at-Arms" is a congressional post and that is not a position that would exist at the Defense Department (the Pentagon), nor would the Secretary of Defense hold a press conference in the Capitol (where someone who has that title would be).

Marco: It's not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. He's impossible to like.

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Question: The whole plot of this movie makes no sense. What was the purpose of having all the soldiers "brainwashed' when they just used one to carry out what they wanted? Plus, why go to the trouble of doing all this when they could have just hired an assassin? Plus, how did they know, in 1952, that this man would be chosen to be the Vice-President?

wolfman

Answer: It's confusing. The entire platoon was brainwashed to be witnesses and verify the fabricated story that Raymond was a "war hero" who saved their lives. Raymond was unknowingly mentally programmed to become a sleeper agent to be used when needed by the Russians or Chinese. He was chosen because Raymond's monstrous mother, Eleanor Iselin, was married to a ruthless, ambitious "Joseph McCarthy-esque" U.S. Senator. She was propelling her husband into being their party's presidential candidate and contacted Communist agents to arrange for her husband's political rival to be assassinated. She was initially unaware that her son would be the chosen assassin. Raymond, being brainwashed, never realised he was a programmed assassin who would have no memory of executing his assignments. He apparently was recruited because of his step-father's political position. It is a rather incredulous plot, to say the least.

raywest

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