Oh, and the voting public is programmed to fear and distrust anyone who doesn’t fear and distrust. and the unmarried business woman Marco meets on the train (Rose, played by Janet Leigh) is programmed to mother an emotionally wounded man. and China and Russia pulling *her* strings! Marco’s superior is programmed to think that men returning from war can be a little paranoid. Senator Iselin is programmed to say or do anything that will get him elected - he doesn’t believe any of it, he’s a puppet with his wife pulling the strings. Characters are programmed to *think* in certain ways which help the plan, young attractive people are programmed to fall in love with the one person their parents disapprove of, liberals are programmed to hate conservatives and vice versa, people are programmed to judge a book by it’s cover - whether that is an actual book (Marco has read hundreds of them since coming home) or a figurative book like their Korean translator who asks Raymond Shaw for a job and Shaw says he doesn’t need a translator in New York City - everyone speaks the same language. One of the great things about this film is how *everyone* is programmed in one way or another. But how can you prove any of this? With the Republican Convention only a few days away, and Iselin the expected Vice Presidential candidate, Marco must figure out a way to convince his commanding officer that he’s *not* crazy or suffering from “shell shock” (PTSD), but that there is a real assassination in only a few days! One sniper shot away from becoming President! And Marco thinks that Shaw might be that sniper. and since this is an election year, Iselin ends up in the Vice President position on the ticket.
He's IMPOSSIBLE to like!” Marco digs around, uncovers the truth - the entire platoon was brainwashed over the three days they were captured, and Shaw - the war hero - has been programmed to kill! Oh, and his step-father Iselin claims there are 207 communist spies in the Department Of Defense, and that managed to catapult him into the headlines. They all use the exact same words! What? “It's not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. This film has a great sense of sly humor (probably due to the tone of the source novel written by the clever Richard Condon).Ĭaptain Marco, who *hated* Shaw, when asked what he thinks of him is *compelled* to answer, “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.”. The old white ladies in the garden club become old Black ladies, and the Black servant becomes a white servant. When they get to James Edwards (the Black guy)'s version of the dream - it's exactly the same, but every character's race is flipped. I love how everyone who was in the platoon has the same dream, but all of the dreams are individualized and different. And the two platoon members Shaw kills in the dream happen to be the two who were killed in their escape. And some members of the women’s gardening club turn into Chinese and Russian military men. where Sgt Shaw strangles one member of the platoon to death and then shoots another in the head. Weird! In the nightmare, he’s at a women’s gardening club meeting. and discovers that he isn’t the only member of the platoon who has this same nightmare. Meanwhile, Captain Ben Marco (Frank Sinatra) who was in Shaw’s platoon and recommended him for the Medal Of Honor, is suffering from a recurring nightmare. Shaw tells them he won’t be part of their schemes, and is headed to New York to take a job as a journalist. Shaw is met at the airport by his overbearing mother Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury) and his hated step-father conservative Senator Iselin (James Gregory) - who try to use his heroism to help Iselin’s political career.
Later, Shaw gets a hero’s welcome home - he has won the Congressional Medal Of Honor for single-handedly overpowering their North Korean captors after three days and rescuing his platoon. Their Korean translator (Henry Silva) leads the platoon through the woods. and when you compare how the direction tells the story in this film as opposed to how some directors of current blockbusters seem to make choices which distract from the story, you wonder what the hell happened to film directors? So many amazing things in this film!ĭuring the Korean War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is a cold, unlovable, disciplinarian officer - hated by his men. and it wasn't just an innovative screenplay and story, the direction is inventive and cool.
This is like the original paranoid political thriller. Produced by: George Axelrod, Frank Sinatra, Howard W. Starring: Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury. Written by: George Axelrod based on the novel by Richard Condon.