Review of The Manchurian Candidate (1962) by Willem W — 22 Nov 2007

Superb paranoid thriller from john Frankenheimer. Sinatra is excellent as the troubled hero. Janet Leigh pretty much oozes sexuality and steals the screen in a thankless role. Laurence Harvey conveys meanace and sympath in his role as the brainwashed assassin.

But Angela Lansbury walks away with the movie as Harvey's conniving and manipulative mother. She's a Freudian morass of motherly love -- the kind that praises their young while eating them.