In the original 1962 version of "The Manchurian Candidate," Frank Sinatra starred as a brainwashed, paranoid Korean War veteran. The movie was a thriller about political assassination, but after President Kennedy was assassinated, it was quietly shelved. Sinatra always thought it was too bad that the movie never received its due audience or due rewards.
His daughter Tina 10 years ago embarked on an effort to remake the movie. Her efforts come to fruition in the summer of 2004 when "The Manchurian Candidate" opened around the country.
"It cried to be updated," Sinatra told Reuters. Frank Sinatra, she said, long before he died in 1998, urged her to pursue a remake. Tina is Frank's youngest daughter.
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| Frank Sinatra and Laaurence Harvey in the Manchurian Candidate (1962). |
The remake stars Denzel Washington in Sinatra's original role, but this time he is a Gulf War veteran, and the conspirators he fears are Enron, Halliburton or Carlyle Group types. Though the movie wasn't meant to be overtly political -- it is based on a novel written in 1959 -- she acknowledges the similiarities to contemporary times. "If the shoe fits...," she says. Asked if the timing of the movie's release - the week of the Democratic National Convention - was coincidental, she said, "I think this was the time it was supposed to be made."
"You've got this particular climate" both in the early 1960s and today -- a dark and ominous cold war and a dark and ominous war on terrorism, casting shadows over the American spirit, with danger always lurking. Might there be an attack? Who is our enemy? "We knew (the climate) would support the film, and
then 'Fahrenheit 9/11' bumped it up another notch," she told
The Village Voice . "I think it's stimulating and healthy and we're glad to be a part of it. But it would be sad
if this film became so overly politicized that it actually became partisan and then we'd lose
half the audience."
The origional "Manchurian Candidate" anticipated the Kennedy assassination by 13 months. She recalled her father's reaction to the Kennedy assassination. "My father sent us out of town to get us out of harm's way. I remember that paranoia and fear," she said. "So I think this film, at a substantially different level,
is affecting people in the same way at test screenings. I've seen that the youth are frightened; there is a reason to worry," she noted. "Maybe it's too timely."
She thought Paramount might delay the release date to next February to avoid election-year comparisons to current political realities. Still, as the Voice points out, this year politicizing a film hasn't hurt either Michael Moore or Mel Gibson. It has made them rich.
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