An outstanding 1962 cold war thriller from American new wave director John Frankenheimer, whose death in July of this year coincided with the 40th anniversary release of this Kennedy era stunner. Out of circulation for many years reportedly because co-star Frank Sinatra, who held the distribution rights, pulled the film from circulation following the assassination of JFK in November 1963. Frankenheimer regularly denied this industry rumor, saying it was a plain business dispute. In any case, the film was not seen for many years until its re-release at age 25 in 1988.

Lawrence Harvey is perfectly cast as the exquisitely unlikable Raymond Shaw, Korean War hero who is brainwashed and conditioned to operate as a trained killer in the US for the communist Russians and Chinese. Angela Lansbury, only three years Harvey's senior in real life, is devastatingly chilling as Raymond's soulless mother. The lighting and severe camera angles make her eerily believable as a woman twice her age. Although some may see it as dated by today's standards, with its relatively unsophisticated treatment of the screen spies we've come to expect a la James Bond, this film remains one of the most compelling, atmospheric representations of the political climate in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

George Axelrod's screenplay, based on a novel by Richard Condon (Prizzi's Honor), tells a riveting story about an army patrol in Korea led by Shaw and Ben Marco (Sinatra). Drawn into an ambush by their guide (Henry Silva), captured, and re-programmed, the party is "rescued" by Shaw after three days of intensive conditioning by a team of communist military doctors. With no memory of what actually happened, recurring nightmares and unaccountable memories haunt the survivors.

In that era of lingering McCarthyism, Hollywood blacklisting, and paranoia about communism, the idea of mental re-programming was getting a lot of attention. Dramatic incidents like the events at the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis contributed to a mass fear of the communist menace. Frankenheimer, who cut his teeth on live TV in the 1950's, reveals his inclination to project his political and social views in many of his films including The Manchurian Candidate. His strong visual style places people close up in the foreground and the intensely visual scenes of the soldiers listening to the communist military leaders masquerading as ladies at a garden club meeting, are fascinating. The use of sounds like crashing thunder to echo the sound of gunfire is not subtle, but very effective to segue from one dramatic arena to another. See it now, in select theaters on the big screen, or on DVD, both in sharp new prints.

Lawrence Harvey: Raymond Shaw	Frank Sinatra: Ben Marco
Janet Leigh: Rosie	Angela Lansbury: Mrs. Iselin
Directed by John Frankenheimer