I’ve seen
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE so many times and know its plot so thoroughly that it no longer holds any surprises for me. Yet I still find it riveting and never cease to marvel at all the performances, especially Frank Sinatra as the military intelligence man who tries to foil a Communist plot to do a very bad deed. In 1953, Sinatra won his only Oscar, as Best Actor, for his G.I. role in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, but it's for CANDIDATE he truly deserved it. His acting is superb, as is that of co-stars Lawrence Harvey, Angela Lansbury and James Gregory, thanks in no small part great part to John Frankenheimer's strong direction. PLEASE don't bother to see the 2004 remake with Denzel Washington. A mess. (Trivia notes: In his karate fight scene with a Korean bad guy, you can see Sinatra
actually break his hand as it slices through a table. JFK loved this film, and Sinatra was so upset after his assassination that he had the film shelved for years.)
