The original Manchurian candidate was a book written by Richard Condon in 1959 and was adapted to a feature film in 1962 and again in 2004. The book is about the son of a US political family and is brainwashed into to assassinate anyone who is a threat to the communist party. The main characters in this film are Major Bennett Marco and Sergeant Raymond Shaw, during the Korean war their platoon was kidnapped and all the whole squad can remember is that Sergeant Shaw saved all their lives. This thriller is different to most other thrillers as it is a political thriller but it is also seen as a paranoid thriller or a psychological thriller. The 1962 version of the film is consider a classic political thriller, the 1962 version was directed by John Frankenheimer and starred Laurence Harvey who played Sergeant Shaw, Frank Sinatra as Major Marco, and Angela Lansbury as Eleanor. Johnny Iselin who is married to Shaws mother Eleanor both attempt to overthrow the US government by saying there are spies in the US government. ( youtube clip of 1962 version).
This trailer leaves the viewer wanting to find out more about the film and what it is about as Hitchcock tells the viewers in the trailer that they wont understand the trailer until they watch all of it and also he states that they haven't seen any film like this one. This leaves the viewer wanting to see the film because it leaves people wondering what the film is about and how good is it going to be. Also the trailer shows that Frank Sinatra who was one of the greatest actors at that time was playing one of the main characters in the film. This would grab the attention of more viewers, as Frank Sinatra was a very popular actor at that time so more viewers would want to watch the film. The film has a great cast that includes Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey with other great actors.
The Manchurian Candidate was remade in 2004 with Denzel Washington playing Major Bennett Marco who is one of the main characters; the other main character is Sergeant Raymond Shaw who was played by Liev. The 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate is similar to the 1962 version but parts of the film were changed to make it more modernized such as; in the original film they were fighting in the cold war but in the new film they were fighting in the golf war. Also the way both films presented what happened to Raymond Shaw as in the original the film all the soldiers who survive keep having a recurring nightmare where Raymond Shaw is Hypnotized into killing 2 of soldiers in Manchuria in communist China and it doesn't show the squad getting captured; whereas in the new version the film starts off showing the battle. Also in the original it doesn't show you how Raymond Shaw fits into the squad. Whereas in the new version the film shows that Raymond Shaw is disliked in the squad. Furthermore in the new version when one of the characters are remembering the events of what actually happened you can hear a heart beating in the background and it gets faster the more they remember also when they remember the screen turns red.
