The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Billing Displacement: Janet Leigh over Angela Lansbury, who plays a much more important role.
  • Fake American: Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey, who are both British.
  • Playing Against Type: It wasn't playing against type at the time, as Lansbury had played her fair share of schemers and antagonists. But for a modern day viewer who might know her from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Murder, She Wrote or Beauty and The Beast, watching her play Mrs. Iselin could be jarring.
  • Throw It In:
    • The scene where Marco tries to break Raymond's brainwashing using a deck of cards comprised totally of Queens of Diamonds is out of focus. Frank Sinatra didn't quite match the intensity of his first performance in subsequent takes, so they used the blurry one. It kind of works to represent Raymond's disorientation.
    • The fight scene where Ben punches his hand through a table is actually Frank Sinatra accidentally punching his hand through a freakin' table and breaking a finger. The injury didn't heal properly and bothered him for the rest of his life.
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