In 1962, director John Frankenheimer electrified audiences with the political thriller, “The Manchurian Candidate.” Frank Sinatra played Ben Marco, an Army officer whose recurring nightmares put a chink in an iron clad story about the gallantry of Sargent Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), a Medal of Honor winner under his command during the Korean War. Shaw turns out to be anything but what was described in the official government records declaring him a hero. He is self absorbed, ill tempered, and selfish. Raymond is his mother’s son, and his mother is a conniving political animal working to undermine the government and put her husband in the white House. Marco’s nightmares turn out to be a symptom of what is yet to come with the future rooted in the past and the events that made Shaw’s Medal of Honor possible. The remake from director Johnathan Demme of “The Manchurian Candidate” follows the same basic plot line. There are just enough modern touches and changes in the relationships to make its story just as plausible to today’s audience as the original was to the era in which it was made: Cold War politics with all its paranoia and fear of world destruction at the throw of a switch was still being played out on the world’s stage. The Cuban Missile Crisis was still on the horizon, the Domino Theory was still a factor in formulating U.S. foreign policy, and the assassination of President Kennedy was less than two years away. “The Manchurian Candidate” seems - in retrospect - to have been a strange foreboding of the future. That the latest version may have the same legacy is yet to be seen.

In this version of “The Manchurian Candidate,” a corporation with ties to the government is responsible for brainwashing a platoon of soldiers in the first Iraqi War. Their subsequent memories of their capture and the bogus story of Shaw’s heroics are controlled by a computer chip hardwired to the brain. They are all pawns in an assassination plot that would set the stage for a presidential candidate of their choosing. In this new update, its a global conglomerate with plans for world domination, not the Communists. In both versions the assassin is activated by a post hypnotic suggestion. Liev Shreiber is thoroughly convincing as the new Shaw who, unlike the original, becomes a candidate for the vice-presidency through the machinations of his mother, Senator Eleanor Shaw played with evil glee by Meryl Streep. She is the power behind the throne who hopes to achieve her vision of America through her son. The only thing she does not count on is the price she will have to pay.

Denzel Washington makes the role of Ben Marco uniquely his own with his haunted eyes, isolated stare, and halting gait. His Marco is a man unsure of his sanity, but certain in his belief that there is more substance to his coded nightmares than his shrinks would have him believe. A fellow soldier, Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright), confirms his doubts when he confesses to having the same dreams, of garden parties and murder all under under the watchful eyes of a gallery of corporate types. Al draws his nightmares on the walls of his apartment like cave drawings of primitive man. His life is a shambles but his word for word description of Shaw as an upright heroic soldier becomes the corroborating evidence that Marco needs to convince his superiors that he is not crazy. It fuels his tenacity and the need to explore Shaw’s social milieu to get closer to the man he recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor and find out what really happened. In order to that he will have to find out what makes Shaw tick.

This modern update of “The Manchurian Candidate” works because of the wonderful performances, a tight script and some surprises that make it stand apart from the original. There is something more to the love interest (Kimberly Elise) that was, perhaps, the one weak point in the original.

Copyright 2004

No mention of assassination films is complete without a few from the Master of Suspense - Alfred Hitchcock.

“Foreign Correspondent” (1940) - An assassination in a sea of umbrellas in the pouring rain is the centerpiece that sets reporter Joel McCrae on the trail of a spy ring in this entertaining thriller. One of Hitch’s best.

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934) - A girl is kidnapped and her parents find out about an assassination plot. Leslie Banks and Edna Best are the parents and Peter Lorre supplies the chills. “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1954) - Hitch made it again with James Stewart and Doris Day as the parents. This one has an assassination near the beginning that hints at the attempted assassination at the end. Que Sera, Sera

“North By Northwest” (1959) - A bona fide classic with Cary Grant suspected of an assassination at the UN forced to go on the lam and impersonate someone who doesn’t exist. Like Hitch’s other films, there are spies everywhere. The crop duster scene is a classic moment in American Cinema as is Cary and Eva Marie Saint crawling around the faces on Mt. Rushmore

Some other assassination movies

“The Parallax View” (1974) - Warren Beatty is a reporter who finds himself being psychologically profiled to become an assassin while on the trail of a string of assassinations that occurred over a prolonged period of time.. Nail biting suspense from beginning to end with a superb supporting cast: Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Hume Cronyn and Anthony Zerbe. Directed by Alan J. Pakula.

“The Tall Target” (1951) - Dick Powell plays a Secret Service agent on the trail of an assassin on a train with Abraham Lincoln. Good film from director John Sturges who would go on to make “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape.”

Two films from the pen of novelist Richard Condon who wrote the book, “The Manchurian Candidate

“Winter Kills” (1979) - When the President of the U.S. is assassinated, his brother - Jeff Bridges - tries to find the killer and becomes a target himself in this mixed bag of drama, comedy and satire. With John Huston as his all powerful father.

“Prizzi’s Honor” (1985) - Condon wrote the book and co-wrote the screenplay about a hit man who falls in love with a hit woman. With Jack Nicholson as and Kathleen Turner as the objects of his each others eyes, and God forbid - hits. Anjelica Huston won the Oscar as the jilted cousin. Her father, John Huston is the director.