Stars: Frank Sinatra (Maj. Bennett Marco), Laurence Harvey (Raymond Shaw), Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Iselin), James Gregory (Sen. John Yerkes Iselin), Janet Leigh (Eugenie Rose Chaney), Leslie Parrish (Jocelyn Jordan)
Director: John Frankenheimer
Awards / Honors
- 2 Oscar nominations - Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury), Best Film Editing
- #67 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
- #17 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001)
- #21 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains – Mrs. Iselin, Villain (2003)
Genre: Drama (Political Thriller)
Running Time: 2 Hours, 6 Minutes
Format: DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)
Odyssey Rating: 3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)
John's Take
While watching this movie, Beth and I started discussing the apparent lack of purpose that Janet Leigh’s character, Eugenie, has in this movie. During that brief discussion, Beth made a comment something along the lines of “Why does Janet Leigh always play these weird roles? Like how she gets wacked right near the beginning of Psycho…” Her comment struck me for two reasons. First, I was pleasantly surprised that Beth even knew that Janet Leigh was in Psycho. Truth be told, despite me being a larger “classic film” buff than Beth, if you wait six months and ask me, “What is the name of the actress that killed at the beginning of Psycho?”, I would probably choke and not remember. I am terrible at names and I pretty much rely on Beth to keep me up to date on “entertainment news”. If I want to know which star is getting married / getting a divorce, she is the person I turn to. However, Psycho was bit before her (and TMZ’s) time, so I was pleasantly surprised. Kudos to Beth. The second reason her comment struck me as profound, was the fact that it was probably more truthful than she realized. Not to disparage the career of Janet Leigh, but one has to admit that her most well-known roles all have sort of odd twist / idiosyncrasy that contribute as much to their notoriety as does her performance.
For example, there is the previously mentioned Psycho (film #16 on our list, by the way) in which her character is killed in the first third of the movie despite being the “star” of the film. In the film Safari, her character decides it is good idea to tour a crocodile-infested river in a rubber raft. In Touch of Evil… OK, the fact that Charlton Heston is trying very hard and failing equally as hard to play a Mexican character – yet it still kind of works because, well, he is Charlton Heston – is more quirky than anything Janet does in the film. That being said, does anybody believe for a second that Janet Leigh is physically capable of strangling anyone? No, I didn’t think so. So, why do any of the characters in the film believe she could?
That brings us back to her role in this film. While watching the film I just assumed that she was tossed in because some Hollywood exec decided that Frank Sinatra needed a love interest and hat film needed more “star power”. However, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a case of me just missing some subtle element in the script or her performance that explains why the heck she is even on screen. Thus, I decided to do a quick internet search before I wrote this post – no harm in double checking. Guess what I found! In the Frequently Asked Questions section of the IMDb entry for The Manchurian Candidate was the question, “What’s Up with Janet Leigh’s Character?” Ah-ha!! Beth and I were not ones who noticed that her character was pointless and much of her dialog didn’t really make sense. So, what was the answer to the question you ask?
Rosie's inexplicable dialogue in the train scene was taken, according to the director's commentary, from the novel. Its meaning is a manner of debate among fans and is up to interpretation. It's possible she was simply saying strange things to catch his attention. Another theory is that she was Marco's [Frank Sinatra’s] "American operator," working with the conspiracy and trying to control Marco. Another theory, which the 2004 remake endorses, is that she was working with the federal government.
In other words, nobody really knows. How terribly unsatisfying.
I guess I could go read the novel, but since I really have no desire to do that, I decided to do the next best thing – look up the novel in Wikipedia and see if I could find an answer there. Unfortunately, I really only managed to learn that this film is considered by some to be a fairly accurate portrayal of the book (which implies that the Eugenie character is just as ubiquitous in the book as in the film), and that the author, Richard Condon, died roughly 15 years ago which means asking him directly is not really an option at this point. Again, terribly unsatisfying.
This unresolved question then brought to mind yet another question. In an industry know for “adapting” source material in anyway they happen to see fit, how does a successful director like John Frankenheimer not take a look at the script and say, “Hey, this character makes no sense. Maybe we could just cut her right out and have Janet play Leslie Parrish’s part…”? Having Janet play Leslie’s part seems like a reasonable solution to me. J anet would have ended up with more or less the same amount of screen time and the film would still have had “big name” actress. At least Leslie’s character had a point to it. Not only does a surprising amount Janet Leigh’s dialog make no sense, her character really doesn’t do anything to move the plot along. You could literally cut out all of her scenes from the finished work and it would have absolutely no affect on the plot whatsoever. No one would even miss her.
However, that isn’t what happened and we are stuck with this slightly annoying ambiguity. It appears that the question of “What’s Up with Janet Leigh’s Character?” is simply one of those mysteries that will never truly be solved. More’s the pity.
I give The Manchurian Candidate a rating of 3 Stars. Overall, it is a good movie and I would certainly watch it again, but there are certainly better movies on this list.
John
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