In the original movie, American GIs in the Korean War
are captured by the North Koreans,
brainwashed by the Chinese
and then released.

THE MANIRAQIAN CANDIDATE

In the new version the opening locale is Iraq
at the time of Desert Storm.

Hollywood's 2004 remake of the 1962 movie "The Manchurian Candidate" has changed the enemy from North Korea, China and the Soviet Union to Iraq in keeping with the new "evil doers" always being Arabs; never communist Chinese or Russians.

Most people watching the 2004 remake will have no idea that the 1962 original wasn't fiction, but a pre-enactment of the assassinations of JFK in 1963 and RFK in 1968. The sniper-in-the-window scenario was used in Dallas and the mind-controlled-shooter was used in Los Angeles. Frankenheimer, the director of the original MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, was eerily connected to both JFK and RFK.

The orignal was yanked from circulation in 1963 because the powers-that-be didn't want people putting two and two together and getting four. Now by bringing out a politically correct remake they can make money off the baby boomers and the baby-boomers' babies and no one will be the wiser.

The Sinatras stand to make money off both seeing as how Frank's daughter, Nancy - of "these boots are made for walking" Waco* fame - is a producer in the remake, just as her father starred in and owned film rights for the original. ~ Jackie Jura

Lansbury regrets Manchurian Candidate remake
Staff and agencies, Thursday July 1, 2004

One person who presumably won't be queuing up to catch the Jonathan Demme remake of The Manchurian Candidate is Angela Lansbury, who starred in the 1962 original. Speaking to US columnist Liz Smith, the veteran British actor expressed her dismay over the new film - a paranoid thriller which updates the action from Korea to the first Gulf War. "I'm so unhappy," Lansbury said. "I'm so sorry they had to mess with something that was so perfect." In the John Frankenheimer original, Lansbury played the role of a communist plant masquerading as a right-wing American matron. In the remake, which opens in the US on July 30, her role is taken by Meryl Streep. "I have a great admiration for Meryl Streep," admitted Lansbury. "She'll probably be interesting. I just wish she hadn't chosen to do it."

The Manchurian Candidate (Preview)
San Diego TribuneProfile

A remake of the 1962 John Frankenheimer film, "The Manchurian Candidate" seeks to maintain much of the post-war paranoia and disillusioned politics that made the original such an acclaimed hit.

Stepping into the role once occupied by Frank Sinatra is Denzel Washington as Capt. Bennett Marco. Marco and fellow soldier Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Schreiber) were taken prisoner during the Gulf War (this is updated from the Korean War in the 1962 version). The two men, along with several others, were brainwashed by their captors, who planned to use them as pawns in future American government proceedings. Ten years later, as Shaw is climbing the political ladder, Marco begins to piece together the past, remembering the nightmare tactics used by their enemies. Marco must now get to Shaw before he can be used as a political puppet by American adversaries.

Remake of thriller Manchurian Candidate coming
John Mckay, Canadian Press, Jul 8, 2004

In 1962, a year before John F. Kennedy's assassination, movie-going audiences weren't yet acclimatized to the concept of a world of evil political conspiracies. While there was the Cold War, the very idea of sleeper agents and assassins squinting through telescopic sights still seemed far-fetched. So when director John Frankenheimer filmed Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate using stark black and white, graphic brain-blasting violence and an altered narrative structure, the critics loved it but ticket-buyers were shocked. And dumbfounded.

Then came Dallas, and November 1963. Suddenly, The Manchurian Candidate seemed eerily prescient. In fact, downright tasteless. And star and owner of the film rights, Frank Sinatra, ordered the picture tucked away, and out of sight it remained, forgotten for nearly a quarter century while its reputation coalesced into screen mythology. When it came time to put the film out on VHS, Sinatra admitted he had forgotten he owned it and its re-emergence on home video was welcomed by film buffs everywhere. Now, with a remake starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep about to be released theatrically, Universal has anointed the '62 version with a much-needed special edition DVD.

Actress Janet Leigh, Sinatra's co-star, agrees in a telephone interview that audiences back then just couldn't accept the plot's evilness, not until Kennedy was slain. "Once our president was assassinated, somehow the country, the people, everybody lost their innocence and they could believe anything. "Today, of course, they accept anything. But at that time they didn't." In hindsight, conspiracy buffs wondered whether Kennedy's purported killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, might have been similarly indoctrinated while he was in Russia. "Yeah, or somebody. Or even the CIA, who knows?" says Leigh.

In the original story, Sinatra and Laurence Harvey play American GIs in the Korean War captured by the North Koreans, brainwashed by the Chinese and then released. Harvey in particular returns to the U.S. unaware that a subconscious implant has turned him into a potential assassin, to be triggered at will by a special code phrase.

Meanwhile, his mother (Angela Lansbury in full Lady MacBeth mode) is a serious political player, backing her husband's run for the presidency while in cahoots with the Communists (hence the title). So the stage is set for a dramatic murder at a leadership convention involving her hypnotized son and her puppet-candidate husband. As Sinatra finally puts all the pieces together - he and his other ex-PoW buddies have been having bad dreams - it becomes a race against time to head off an assassination.

Leigh remembers reading the Condon book in 1960 while flying back to Hollywood from the JFK inauguration on a Sinatra chartered flight. "I finished the book and I was so angry and so upset when I got to the end and it was all disclosed. Truly, I was just burning inside and I shut the book and threw it down the aisle of the plane. I was so frustrated." But when she was offered a major role in the film version a year later, she was thrilled, even though, she says, it was the most difficult role of her career....

There are tirades on the Internet from devoted fans of the original who say a remake is unnecessary because it's impossible to improve on what they feel is a perfectly crafted thriller, one that was way ahead of its time. Leigh herself says the new cast is brilliant enough, but even she wonders if the premise can carry the same kind of wallop.

"Today's audiences are so blase, and they're so used to evil and everything being underhanded...My only concern is can they make it that much of a shock. I don't know."

The new version is directed by Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) with Washington in the Sinatra role, Streep as the Lansbury/mother character and Liev Schreiber as Harvey's sleeper assassin. Nancy Sinatra is a producer. Also, the opening locale is Iraq at the time of Desert Storm, which raises questions about whether the bad guys are going to be Muslim or Manchurian.

Map of Manchuria

Ewen Cameron & Psychic Driving. Michael Charron, Simon Fraser University
...The term "brainwashing" caught the eye of members of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During the Korean War, 70% of the 7,190 American prisoners of war "either made confessions or signed petitions calling for an end to the American presence in Asia" (Gillmor, 1987, p. 78), and the CIA believed that the only possible explanation for this was that the Chinese had brainwashed the American prisoners...

UNCLE SAM SAYS POW DESERTED

JAPAN NUKED BUT NOT KOREA and NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

FRANKENHEIMER'S JFK/LBJ MOVIES

LBJ'S PATH TO WAR (John Frankenheimer's obsession with LBJ who had an obsession with Bobby Kennedy)

KOREA-VIETANAM-GULF WARS

*Waco: The Rules of Engagement
...What comes through strongly is the sense that the attackers were "boys with toys." The film says many of the troops were thrilled to get their hands on real tanks. Some of the law-enforcement types were itching to "stop standing around." One SWAT team member boasts he is "honed to kill." Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walking" was blasted over loudspeakers to deprive those inside of sleep (the memory of that harebrained operation must still fill the agents with shame).

Manchurian Candidate movie review and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE


China Macau unblocks N Korea funds (communists won't de-nuclearize Korea until US$25-million transferred) & North Korea kids go hungry (USA/S.Korea give food & funds direct to communist gov't) & Food crisis in North Korea (members of military & communist Party are the only recipients of food). BBC/Epoch/Seattle Times, Apr 10, 2007

ORWELL COINED "COLD WAR"

Ban Ki-moon replaces Kofi Annan (Korean now has top UN job). AustraliaNews, Oct 11, 2006 & North Korea tests nuclear bomb (China & Russia its closest allies). Military.com, Oct 9, 2006

WARMONGER EXPLAINS TO PEACENIK

16.Ministry of Truth (Lies) and 25.Prolefeed

GULLIVER DISCOVERS HISTORY FALSIFIED (world misled by prostitute writers)

Manchurian Candidate movie review and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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