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Mistakes

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. See more...

Trivia

Angela Lansbury plays Laurence Harvey's mother in this film, but in reality she is only three years older than him. See more...

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The Manchurian Candidate (1962) - 1 question

Directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Angela Lansbury, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, Laurence Harvey (add more)

Genres: Drama, Mystery, Thriller

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Questions

Question: A part of this film's critical acclaim was caused by an unfocused shot, which the critics called brilliant - even though the lack of focus was an accident. What is that shot and where exactly in the movie does it appear?

Answer: The shot in question occurs when Sinatra's character, Marco, holds up a deck full of queens while trying to deprogram Raymond. On the DVD commentary track, the director, Frankenheimer, acknowleges that the scene was out of focus, and that though Sinatra supplied several other takes of the scene, the other takes weren't nearly as good, so he went with the flawed one. Later, Frankenheimer was praised by critics for the unfocused shot showing Raymond's disturbed perceptions.

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