Despite it hurting his presidential ambitions, a line uttered by former Senator Barry Goldwater that rings true and is most applicable to the themes and plot of the John Frankenheimer directed The Manchurian Candidate reads: Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice. In The Manchurian Candidate, we are treated to a chaotic but perfectly structured mix of fanaticism and patriotic fervor, just after the end of the Korean War but during a period of peak anxiety and paranoia in America fueled by the fear of communism and the Cold War. In the midst of the McCarthyism and communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, this analysis of The Manchurian Candidate will support the contention that fear and paranoia were more of an enemy to American freedom than the actual threat of communism in this era.
The film is an excellent drama that revolves around the members of a group of American soldiers who have returned home, one of them, Raymond Shaw, the recipient of the Medal of Honor. In reality, the soldiers were captured and brainwashed by Korean agents, becoming sleeper agents. One of them, Raymond Shaw, is programmed to assassinate the presidential candidate so the vice-presidential candidate, Shaw’s step-father John Iselin, can become president. Shaw’s mother, a fanatic, ambitious, communist agent, is her son’s programmer. Her machinations involve programming her son to kill his new bride and her father, Iselin’s political enemy. Aided by a former soldier, Bennett Marco, whose recurring nightmares alert him to Shaw’s brainwashed condition, Shaw eventually sacrifices his life at his own hands, after killing his mother and his step-father instead of the presidential candidate. The film ends with Marco musing on the meaning of heroism, patriotism, and sacrifice in light of Shaw’s death.
The Manchurian Candidate is paranoiac, surrealistic, macabre, cynical and satirical in mood and tone. The film’s opening credits run over ...