Gaslight with angela lansbury12/28/2023 ![]() But the most chilling portrayal is reserved for Angela Lansbury as Raymond’s politically ambitious mother it will live, as the saying goes, in infamy. This is one or his strongest performances, as is in turn that given by Sinatra as the major. Harvey is hardly the typical GI, but then Raymond Shaw is not like other men. Here their “instructor” is a squat, fearsome psychiatrist named Yen Lo (Khigh Dhiegh) and what happens to them is like some monstrous nightmare, as diabolically funny as it is hair-raising. The brainwashers are Red China Communists, the brainwashed several members of an American Army patrol, led by Harvey and Frank Sinatra, who are betrayed by their interpreter, Henry Silva, ambushed and whisked aboard a helicopter to a brainwashing “class” in Manchuria. ![]() Some will dismiss the concept as sheerest fantasy, or see in Raymond Shaw just a nuclear-age version of that older, less complicated Frankenstein’s monster. I don’t know how far this fiendish “science” has progressed or that it could do to any human organism what it does here to Raymond Shaw, played by Laurence Harvey. But what IS it about? A Manchurian? A candidate? A candidate for what?Īmong other things, this is the most frightening picture about brainwashing ever made - and there are moments, particularly in the earlier sequences, during which the viewer may begin to believe he is undergoing a session or two himself. “The Manchurian Candidate” is not only fascinating because it is so unpredictable as storytelling but also because it reverts to the kind of movie-making that made cinema - sheer “film” - a joy, and an end in itself. I went the second time to see if I would see what I thought I saw the first time. I have now looked at the pesky thing twice. Anyhow, whatever it was that threw readers of the book into incoherencies has been carried over into the picture. I understand readers of Richard Condon’s novel had something of the same difficulty in trying to describe it to friends. “You’ll have to see it and figure that out for yourself,” he said. Frankenheimer took a deep breath, stammered a few words and then gave up. John Frankenheimer, the director, was well into “The Manchurian Candidate,” which he was filming from George Axelrod’s script, when I asked him what it’s about. Kanopy: Included | Apple TV: Rent/Buy | Amazon Prime: Rent/Buy ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ġ962 | Thriller | 2 hours 6 minutes | Rated PG-13 It is well off the hewn track, and therefore interesting. Peter Lawford, Richard Fraser, Douglas Walton, Morton Lowry and Miles Mander are in the cast. Donna Reed appears effectively as the daughter of Hallward, in love with Gray. Miss Lansbury endows Sibyl Vane, the songstress with virginal charm. Gilmore admirably portrays the painter throughout. Of murder there is the touch when Dorian Gray kills Hallward (Lowell Gilmore,) the artist who has painted him. ![]() The film falls flat in this and the climax. ![]() But the artist reveals neither subtlety nor inspiration in what he has done to unveil the deterioration process. This picture is supposed to show the effects the life of the central character has had upon him, while he himself remains ever young. For that reason it will arrest the interest of the discriminating audience, even though it may not completely satisfy the devotees of the poet who gave the strange story life.ĭismaying in the film is the actual close with its evidences of contrition on the part of Dorian Gray, and also the earlier grotesque treatment of the idea of the painting. There are jarring compromises in the production, unquestionably, yet it will rate as one of the most unusual ever brought before the public. ![]() MGM has brought the fabulous Oscar Wilde narrative of soul-destruction to the screen, but undoubtedly faced the laws, the prophets and the Hays office in its brave endeavor. Apple TV: Rent/Buy | Amazon Prime: Rent/Buyįrom Edwin Schallert’s 1945 review: The “flowers of evil” bloom in the screen transcript of “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” They flourish ebulliently in the conversations of Lord Henry (George Sanders), whose decadent bon mots appear to awaken marked response, especially with the feminine audience. ![]()
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