Transcription
This week, *The Manchurian Candidate* from 1962, a political thriller. An American p in the Korean War is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international communist conspiracy.
We're going to get right into it. Let's get into it. You know, this is part of our political election series, so let's talk about movies that are built around our government. In this case, *The Manchurian Candidate*. Of course, it's a hot bed topic in America, and it's caused a very, as they say, divisive – but I call it divisive because it's dividing. But in any event, um, so that's why we're doing political films.
We're standing outside the Elizabeth City Hall council chambers. I'd rather be sitting, Joe, I know, but out of respect to them, we're not allowed to have food or drink inside the city Chambers to preserve the historical Ambiance. I get a little shaky. The drink I can't, because this CPS is called the Queen of Diamonds. Mmm, smooth, stylish, and a sophistication of danger. It's Sinatra in the glass. Much like his performance in the unforgettable *Manchurian Candidate*, this cocktail captures The Rat Pack sophistication with an edge, tying the intrigue and glamour of the 1960s Cold War era.
I ate my raspberry already. Oh, you like to eat raspberries, I see. Let's talk about the ingredients, shall we? Yes, 2 oz of gin, 1 oz of lay blon L blon, half oz of cherry Lor for the Queen of Diamonds, like half oz of fresh lemon juice, dash of orange bitters, and in homage to Frank Sina, we threw in a float of a splash of champag. I might like it. So, let's clink our glasses and cheers to Frank Sina and the Manan candidate.
So far, out of all the CPS, I think two I've really been able to enjoy in the thousands we've done, 'cuz it's too much liquor. Well, I hopefully you'll enjoy the queen of sonds, mmm, as we watch and review *The Manchurian Candidate*. [Music]
Interesting. It's not bad, but I would never ask for it at a bar. Why not? Because I want it sweeter. You and the sweet thing. I do. I, I can't stand sweet, sweet. Well, that's you, and you're making the drink, so I... No, I'm just torture. I'll put an extra raspberry in. Maybe it's a conspiracy so the producers get drunk 'cuz they always drink my drink. Where's my card? I'm going to brainwash you into liking this drink. Mmm, here, the Queen of Diamonds. A champagne saved it. [Music]
Before we start our episode, I want to give thanks to the City of Elizabeth and especially Mayor Christian bage. As well you should! On behalf of The Real Watch List Plus and Bold Media Films, we want to give a heartfelt thanks to the Mayor and the City of Elizabeth for allowing us to film this episode in a stunning, historic Elizabeth City Chambers. Your support gave us the perfect backdrop, adding depth and authenticity to our production. We couldn't have done it without you. Thank you, Mayor, for preserving such a gem and sharing it with us. Stay tuned, there's more to come on The Real Watch List Plus.
Um, why don't we just show our scores? We'll start this thing off with our scores. Okay, on a count of three: one, two, three. We are starting to clone. Wow, we're close! I have an eight and a half, and I have an eight. I have an eight.
Okay, so let's talk about what we liked the most, and the scenes we liked, and what we disliked to give it our score, to chip it off of a ten. Yeah, because this is an important film, not only in film history, but United States history. The discussion about being able to brainwash people into doing your someone else's biddings.
And if you watch the trailer, which is interesting, that the trailer at the time says, "If you miss the first five minutes, you're not going to get the movie," which is so true, because all of this happens within that first five minutes. You get bits and pieces. You get the capture of the soldiers. You get these bits and pieces of The Nightmare, which is actually the brainwashing, and you really don't understand what's happening until, as the story unfolds. And I thought it was really clever to do it that way, because there's so many pictures about the military and army. If you think of them all through time in Classic Cinema, it's so connected to battles and the Army and the War Room scenes that this actually was like a departure, which intrigued you into the movie and gave it a balance between real life and also the military and how insidious they could be.
And of course, with all brainwashing, with an assassin that's coming, you know, to the America, they have to have a trigger. Mm-hmm. So there is a trigger that Raymond, all of a sudden, when he's home, he's acting normally and all normal, but then there's a trigger that gets him to go into kill mode. Right. That, and you later discover that the trigger is the Queen of Diamonds. The Queen of Diamonds playing C. And when they're teaching him, brainwashing him, they're teaching him to play solitire, but he's not really playing Solitaire. His hands are moving. They're doing movements that would be normal, regular life, but the brainwashing is brainwashing them that when they get back, they're doing something that everybody around would never notice. That is a signal by their Handler in America. You see that in the beginning scene. He's going through the motions, and you're realizing we don't know at this point who the Handler is, and that's a big surprise.
Angela lansburg, she's in this film. I just, incredible performance, unbelievable. Um, as we later find out, as the story unfolds, we know Raymond Shaw is The Sleeper Cell that was brainwashed by the Communists, by the Chinese and the, and the Soviets. And his mother is the m part of the Mastermind of this invasion of the US government. She's married to, um, Senator is. Right, senator, who is trying to be president, but along the way, he has little stumbling blocks. He has people in, and he's an odious person. Oh, he, well, they developed his character around, um, Joseph McCarthy during the Communist scare. Right. Seems like we have that as a reference in a lot of these films. And by doing so, he's kind of a, kind of a dope, but he's got the onliners. He's saying, he's saying all the right things to get people scared. And Angela lansberry, Mrs. island, is trying to use him to get into a position of power. He doesn't realize it because he's a dope, but she is getting him to the point where, okay, I know I have to take out certain number of people, certain people, in order to get him to the presidency.
Near to final scene, right, where, um, Raymond is got has a love interest, and a love interest that was pushed away by his mom, by the this whole kind of programming, this telling him that she's a communist, that you don't want to, you know, be with her 'cuz she's going to set you on the wrong path. But then she comes back around. They kind of reconnect after a while because his love interest father is very high in politics, and he's on the opposing side, saying that Islan is a dangerous guy, you don't want him in. Right.
And then they're at a costume party. At the costume party, uh, Raymond's love interest is in a costume: k a DI. Yeah. And that wasn't meant to be. She just chose that. It wasn't like she was part of it, but they make you think that she might be for a few seconds, then you realize she's not. Right.
Raymond walks in, and, um, Angela Lansbury, sitting in almost like a living room Den, very, again, it's very stately, almost like the furniture that we have here. Remember, you're talking about a senator, United States Senator. You're talking about people that have some money. And as Raymond walks in costume, which is a large card, large queen of of Diamond's card, is laying on the couch facing Raymond. Now, you remember he's playing solitire, and the trigger card is the Queen of Diamonds. Right. So that is the key to get him to do the bidding of whoever instructs him to do something. Um, and as the mother's instructing him like this, "This Woman's no good for you." Now, you know, here's the plan. And the plan has discovered, spoil alert, that she is going to get her husband into a position of power. There's going to be a convention where he'll be nominated as a vice presidential candidate. The president presidential candidate will be on stage at Madison Square Garden. Raymond is now instructed to dress up as a priest. No one will realize it, because who's going to stop a priest from going into anywhere for that matter? And of course, he's a sharpshooter because he was, you know, I think a captain or something when he was in the Army. So he's in a position now where he's instructed to go. And at the point where the speech is delivered, and she does, she delivers it so well that he finishes the phrase, "Nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself." He is going to, Raymond is going to shoot the presidential candidate, which he'll fall, and then her husband, the vice presidential candidate, will rise up and tell the crowd, "This is part of the Communist, you know, regime taking over our government," when in actually uality, it's her. Right. They set her up. The Communist set her up on this grand plan, and she discloses that she didn't realize the sleeper sub was going to be her son, and that she loves her son, and that when she gets into that position of power, she's going to show the Communist who really has the power.
Well, let me tell you about my favorite scene in it. And it wasn't, it, it was a very small scene, but it was Dudu the director, John frankenheimer, another director I really, really like. And when you realize that Angela Lansbury is the Handler, you go like, "Whoa, his own mother!" And I don't really think she cared that much about Raymond. I think you said you loved her. I, I think that she was out for herself. Wait a minute, if you read the novel, we're going to talk about book versus novel, there was an insestuous relationship between the two. Get to that.
But the thing I liked about the scene is frankenheimer has a way of off-kilter framing. He's really good at it. But the way he frames the scene is you realize, number one, she's his Handler, and he puts the camera in an off-kilter position, which makes you feel uneasy. And he puts her higher up and a lower off-kilter camera shot, which every time Raymond's seen with his mother, she's in a position of authority, and you don't even real sublim see it, but subliminally she's always, she is, is one of the most awful like kruella DeVille type characters, worse, where she uses her own son for her own gains and doesn't give a damn about the United States, you know, at all. But I love that about it.
And my least favorite scene? Well, I had two. One on the train with Janet Lee. She just comes into it out of the blue, and she's meets Franks and outra on a train, and all of a sudden they have this relationship. And at the end, I mean, this brainwashing takes like a couple of months, two, three months, with drugs and, and Chinese and Russian and everybody after Raymond. And then he comes home, and Frank Sinatra, who's another instrumental character in this, of course, really the star because he had the power. In a couple of conversations, he, he gets him to listen to him so that instead of seeing the card, he gets Frank Sinatra to supposedly meet him at a certain time and stop this what ever, they really don't know what the assassination is. And he had another army guy are running around going, "What's going to happen? Where is he going?" The mother's instructing him what to do, but you don't really know, is he following the mother's instructions, or is the brainwashing broke? Because he's very stoic. He's very, he's sweating. He doesn't realize what's going on. And it's that last bit of that scene that's like, "Whoa, what the hell's going on?" where Angela Lansbury, the mother, closes in on his, on her son, and gives him a kiss on the forehead, on the side, and then she cleverly, through the director, gives him a kiss on the lips with her hand covering the kiss.
Well, well, in the book, they made an incestuous relationship. They even had a scene where they were in bed together. Yes, they had a love relationship. And do you know, in the book too, they, they dig deeper into her character, and the mother was abused by the father, and that, um, because of the abuse, after time, she actually falls in love with her father.
So, I, the scene that you mentioned in, in the train where he's, uh, Frank sinra, Major Bennett Marco, is in, and he's shaking 'cuz he's, he's like, "I don't know what's going on here. I have these nightmares." And he's, again, they're, they're unfolding the story where he's going to find out that there's a connection between his nightmares and his other platoon members Nightmare and what's actually happening. Uh, he meets, um, Eugene Rose, or Rosie, who is played by Janet Lee of the psycho, yeah, uh, fame. Um, and he's shaking, his cigarette is falling into his drink, and he's going on. And there were a lot of film Goofs in that scene as he's leaving the car and going into the area between the two. Uh-huh. The backdrop, I don't know if you know, is repeating itself. That they've done that, and they, they did that in a lot of old films. And in one scene where you're looking at her, Janet Lee, and you don't know where the hell she's coming from, like you mentioned that earli, like, "Where the hell did this character come from?" And she just, just kind of like, I don't know, the character. I just didn't really get into that character that much. But then you question, is she like part of the United States government? Is she trying to, 'cuz she's talking to do in the movie, "Remember my phone number, remember my address." Is she's reciting it over and over? Is she trying to test them to see if there's a trigger word? They try to get you to, you know. [Music]
Let's talk about our costumes. Do you look like you should be in a Chinese takeout restaurant? Well, the whole thing, it's a crossover. I'm, I'm supposed to be, you know, angel ansbury. I mean, she didn't wear Chinese, um, you know, outfits, but she represented that. So this is a giy reversible. I love this jacket. And, um, so it just shows the evil Mama.
Today, I play Raymond Shaw, who is the one who's brainwashed. He's in the Army, and I'm wearing my Army outfit. Um, this is actually an authentic Army outfit from my uncle who served during Vietnam. Oh, that's Martino, that's my mother's side of the family. Thank God you're the same size. I am really happy that, because he was in his early, mid-20s, and I'm skinny thing. Yeah, I'm like, "I'm fitting in this baby." There you go. So I'm the one who's brainwashed.
We're getting too skinny. We're doing too much film work. We're getting skinnier and skinnier. We are. Got to reverse this thing, and then in six months, we'll be 400 lb sitting here. Right. [Music]