The Manchurian Candidate - Film Adaptations

Film Adaptations

The Manchurian Candidate has been adapted twice into a feature film by the same title. The first film, released in 1962, is considered a classic of the political thriller genre. It was directed by John Frankenheimer and starred Laurence Harvey as Shaw, Frank Sinatra as Marco, and Angela Lansbury as Eleanor in an Academy Award-nominated performance.

The second film, released in 2004, was directed by Jonathan Demme, and starred Liev Schreiber as Shaw, Denzel Washington as Marco, and Meryl Streep as Eleanor. It was generally well received by critics, and moderately successful at the box office. The 2004 film updated the conflict (and brainwashing) to the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and emphasized the science fiction aspects of the story by setting the action in a dystopian U.S. A U.S. corporation is the perpetrator of the brainwashing and conspiracy instead of foreign Communist groups, and the Johnny Iselin character is dropped in favor of making both Shaw and his mother elected politicians. The movie adaptations also omit the novel's portrayal of incest between Raymond and his mother, only hinting at it with a mouth-to-mouth kiss.

Both adaptations discard several elements of the book. The book spends more time describing the brain-washers and the facility in Manchuria where the Americans were held. The head of the project grants Raymond a "gift"; after his brainwashing, he becomes quite sexually active, in contrast to his reserved nature beforehand where he hadn't even kissed his love interest, Jocelyn Jordan.

In the novel, Mrs. Iselin and her son travel abroad, where she uses him to kill various political figures and possibly Jocelyn Jordan's first husband. Rosie, Marco's love interest, is also the ex-fiance of one of his associates handling the Shaw case for Army Intelligence, making things between them tense.

As a child, Mrs. Iselin was sexually abused by her father but fell in love with him and idolized him after his early death. Towards the end of the book, as Raymond is hypnotized by the Queen of Diamonds, he reminds her of her father and she sleeps with him.

Finally, while the 1962 version does not state outright the affiliation of Senators Iselin and Jordan, the novel makes it clear that both are in the Republican party.