Prompt: Consider this postwar film in relation to From Here to Eternity and Kings Go Forth. Consider the politics of this film -- is it leftist? Does Sinatra's character carry leftist overtones? How are Sinatra's war characters in these films similar to or different from those in his earlier musicals?
I had never seen The Manchurian Candidate before watching it for this class, and I actually really enjoyed it and I think it's a great film. We have been talking about Sinatra and his politics recently, so it was also interesting to keep that in mind while viewing this movie. I guess the film could be seen as leftist because the plot does breed a sense of distrust for governmental authority, and portrays some figures of power as being incompetent or clueless as to what is really going on. There is so much emphasis put on the evils of communism and how it will run the country into the ground, while in fact it is the people who are leading the communist witch hunt who are plotting with Russian communists to take over the U.S. government. It really plays with perceptions of reality, and forces the viewer to think about their own prejudices; the "bad guy" might sometime be the person behind the scene who is pulling all of the strings.
Sinatra's characters in his earlier musicals are very different from the men he portrays in war films, even though in most of his musicals he seems to be in uniform as well. I feel that as Sinatra's film career developed over time, so did his characters; he went from playing shy, self conscious, or insecure guys to portraying more assertive, confident, and confrontational men.
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