Film Review of The Manchurian Candidate

Essay by StabbedbyangelzHigh School, 11th gradeA+, May 2002

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The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate is a film about the second red scare in the 1950's. Communism is being threatened in the United States, after their takeover in Russia during the Cold War following World War II

The character of Johnny Iselin closely portrays Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who, along with HUAC, the CIA, and the FBI blacklisted many notoriously leftist politicians and Hollywood peoples in an attempt to contain communism. The CIA investigated the backgrounds of many former communist cardholders. Their policy was guilty until proven innocent.

Johnny Iselin is a presidential candidate, whose platform is based upon anti-communistic propaganda. He accuses many intelligent and competent people of being Reds in order to bring incompetent people into office, so that he could gain more power. His wife, who is also a communist, was very influential in his campaign. She is trying to raise him to power so that she can take over, even thought this would never happen in 1950's society.

She manipulated both her husband and her son, Raymond Shaw, in order to gain power.

She is in control of the American Communist party, and in order to keep her under their control, they use her son Raymond as their pawn. The Russian and Chinese communists use somnambulism to make Shaw commit monstrous acts via a game of solitaire, with the Queen of Hearts being the trigger. He kills his own wife, her father who is Senator Jordan, and the newspaper editor, Gaynes. The ultimate plan is to shoot Iselin's opponent so that he will come into power, but Raymond's mother has a better idea. Shoot Johnny, and then she will come into power. Raymond decides to end this game of charades in his head by killing Iselin, then Mrs. Iselin, then himself.

J. Edgar Hoover,