The Mancharian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate

This film is based on the book 'The Manchurian Candidate,' it was written by Richard Condon. I watched both versions of the film, (1962) and (2004).I personally found the 1962 version, of the film difficult to understand.

It is about an army who is kidnapped, and brainwashed into thinking Sergeant Raymond Shaw saved their lives, battling by himself with the enemy, while other members of the army were passed out.

When they go back to the United States, Captain Marco starts having recurring dreams of Shaw murdering two of his soldiers. He finds out another solider has had recurring dreams similar to him. Marco start to investigate on what really happened that night.

Marco finds out Shaw's mother is behind all this, and Shaw can be hypnotised by the queen of diamonds, and will do anything his mother tell him, without remembering. Raymond's mother tells him to assassinate the opposition part, as he arrives at the hall Marco tries to stop him. Raymond then shoots his mother and step-father and commits suicide, while wearing the medal of honour.

Analysis of Trailer

The music is the same throughout the trailer. There are deep notes played and a continuous ringing sound. There are non-diegetic sounds such as screaming, punching,fighting. When Janet is introduced the music decreases in volume, when the image of the Manchurian candidate appears the music continues. Deeps beats are consistent.

Words appear on the screen. There is a close up shot of a man waking up, his eyes and mouth are wide open, and his eyebrows are arched up, his facial expression shows that he has woken up from a bad dream and is scared. Words appear again then it cuts to a over the shoulder shot of a guy getting punched. There is a medium shot of him falling to the ground. Then it cuts to a close up shot of a bloody nose and a medium shot of the two men fighting. There is a high angle shot of a women dressed as queen of diamonds, this shows she is a powerful person.

There is a point of view shot of Raymond looking outside the window of his car. It cuts to the crowd, then onto a high angle shot of a person holding a gun, this shows that he is powerful. Then it cuts to images of the actors, there are graphic matches from the image to the scenes of the movie. A dutch tilt is used after Lawrence Harvey introduced. It dissolves onto him talking then onto him at the beach with a women. Finally an image of a women is zoomed up on the image it says the Manchurian candidate.