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.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
1 other mistake - chronological order
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Starring: Angela Lansbury, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, Laurence Harvey
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.
Marco: It's not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. He's impossible to like.
Trivia: Angela Lansbury plays Laurence Harvey's mother in this film, but in reality she is only three years older than him.
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?
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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.