> Thanks for the heads-up about people not being able to fully
> appreciate the
> remake of the Manchurian Candidate if they haven't seen the original.
> The
> significant other wants to see it, but hasn't seen the Frank Sinatra
> version, so I am resistant, and this steels my resolve.
The local PBS station showed the original last night. I thought it was quite well done, despite a few of what couldn't quite be called "plot holes" -- "plot black holes" might be more like it. Especially how the evil mother was connected to the evil Red Chinese/Soviets/Koreans, and whether we are supposed to take this brainwashing stuff seriously or not. Looked to me as though, at that time (made early in the Kennedy Administration?), a somewhat leftish world view was beginning to revive, but couldn't make up its mind about whether the Soviet Empire (especially its Asian branch) was really evil or not. So the makers of the film came up with this rather outlandish stitching together of the Reds and the McCarthyites in the U.S. Perhaps the idea was to dramatize the liberal platitude that the extreme right and extreme left were twins.
Planning to see the remake in the next few days. Definitely planning to give "The Village" a miss.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt