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.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Starring: Angela Lansbury, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, Laurence Harvey
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.
Trivia: Angela Lansbury plays Laurence Harvey's mother in this film, but in reality she is only three years older than him.
Chunjin: I need job.
Raymond Shaw: Job?
Chunjin: Yes Sir, Mr. Shaw.
Raymond Shaw: But my dear fellow, we don't need interpreters here. We all speak the same language.
Marco: It's not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. He's impossible to like.
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: There's just one thing, babe. I'd be a lot happier if we could just settle on the number of Communists I know there are in the Defense Department. I mean, the way you keep changing the figures on me all the time, it makes me look like some kind of a nut, like... like an idiot.
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?
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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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 ★