129
Release date 24th October 1962
Country : USA
Running time : 126 mins
Genre : Thriller
Starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh
Screenplay by George Axelrod based on the novel by Richard Condon
Directed by John Frankenheimer
Raymond Shaw, a
decorated hero from the Korean War is brainwashed by Communists into
being a political assassin. Another prisoner Ben Marco has recurrent
nightmares and can't quite remember what Shaw did to be a hero, he
decides to investigate Raymond's current activities
Odd how this movie gets under the skins of the characters yet in a way doesn't. We never see the real person played by Laurence Harvey for instance, he remains an enigma under the thought control. The sequence where the soldiers believe they are at a tea party when in fact they are getting interrogated and tortured is both weird and wonderful. Sinatra gives one of his finest acting performances as the soldier who realises something is badly wrong with the Army's finest hero but Angela Lansbury really steals the movie with her spidery evil mother who produces a lot of sexual tension in her scenes with Harvey.
Angela Lansbury at 36
was only three years older than Laurence Harvey who played her son.
Sinatra wanted Lucille
Ball to play the villainous mother.
DVD
available from MGM/UA Home Video :
http://www.amazon.com/
DVD Movie Guide
DVD Town
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Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles
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