The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The motion picture The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962) was in many respects prophetic in terms of what it has to say about the American political system and how that system might develop over the next several years. The film can be seen as rather cynical work in that it regards American politics as a game in which the public can be and is manipulated by the unscrupulous. The reason this can be done is because the public responds more to image than to reality, something that was beginning to be more evident at the time this film was produced and that has been much discussed in the years since. The film was made in 1962, placing t after the media-driven campaign of John F. Kennedy in which the candidate who did best on television was also the best-received by the public, as will be explained below. The political campaign in this film is also driven by manipulation of the media, but also by a plan involving murder, false heroism, and finally treason on a grand scale.

This film was produced at the height of the Cold War as hysteria was mounting about a potential Russian and Chinese threat, and in the film it is the Chinese threat that becomes the greatest threat, as the title indicates. The period was one of considerable tension, and the United States was at the time still awash in fear of possible nuclear attack, seen in the number of people building fall-out shelters in their basements or backyards. There was also a scientific race under way between t

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ey had left behind a large amount of equipment, including mortars, howitzers, self-propelled guns, anti-tank guns, and 150 T-34 tanks. The ground forces totaled nearly 150,000, of which 89,000 were trained combat troops. In the South, there were some 65,000 ROK combat troops armed only with M-1 rifles, carbines, mortars, howitzers, and ineffective bazookas. The army had no medium artillery and no recoilless rifles. The air force consisted of only 22 training and liaison planes. By June of 1950, only one of the four ROK divisions near the border was in defensive position, and more than a third of the troops were at home helping with the harvest while the other regiments were in reserve ten to thirty miles to the rear (Toland 18-19). In the film, there are both Korean and Soviet soldiers in the dream sequence, along with the Chinese who are conducting the matter. The Chinese did support the North Koreans in their war, seeing it as part of the larger battle of communism against the West. One of the concerns to emerge from the Korean War was the idea that soldiers could be brainwashed, could be so psychologically torn down that they could be made to do things they otherwise would not do. A variety of medical experiments were

Category: Film - T