The Manchurian Candidate - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Manchurian Candidate or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Manchurian Candidate

[marc]

In this movie and the novel, Raymond Shaw kills Senator John Yerkes Iselin, his mother, Eleanor Shaw Iselin, and then himself during the convention. Unlike this movie, the novel concludes with the hypnotized Raymond commiting those murders, and his own suicide, after being ordered to do so by Major Bennett Marco.

[miriam]

Executive Producer Howard W. Koch has stated that because Writer and Producer George Axelrod was busy writing, Koch acted as this movie's de facto producer.

[jesus]

During filming, Frank Sinatra told in an article destined to a magazine that Laurence Harvey had Communist members in his family and also loved kissing men in public. Harvey was shocked, but Sinatra told him it was a joke.

[kristen]

This movie said there were seventy-seven Medal of Honor recipients for the Korean War. As of 2019, there are one hundred forty-five, of which one hundred three were awarded posthumously.

[sophie]

Rosie's number, ELdorado 5-xxxx was once a telephone company test number that would always give anyone who calls it a busy signal. However, as of 2009, the number is active in at least one area code.

[camila]

The assassination sequence was filmed first over a period of four days in an empty Madison Square Garden in New York City with Laurence Harvey walking between vast rows of vacant seats and arriving at the booth high up in the arena. The rest of the sequence was filmed in the far smaller Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California with tight shots of crowds at the fictional convention, edited together to give the impression that the original location was now filled with thousands of people.

[miriam]

The November 1988 issue of "Films in Review" ran a nine-page retrospective on this movie by Michael Scheinfeld.

[nora]

The brainwashing sequence was filmed three times in its entirety (the garden club ladies, Corporal Allen Melvin's (James Edwards') viewpoint, and the Communist captors) against three different sets constructed so the camera could turn completely around in each. The parts were then edited together to convey the shifting perspectives.

[dustin]

In-joke: during the prologue set in 1952, one of the bar girls reads an old movie magazine with a cover shot of Tony Curtis and his then-wife, Janet Leigh (Eugenie Rose Chaney).

[toni]

Famous for his use of innovative camera angles, Writer, Producer, and Director John Frankenheimer was widely acclaimed for a shot that is slightly out of focus: Frank Sinatra showing the all-Queens deck of cards to Laurence Harvey. Frankenheimer said that rather than the shot being evidence of inspiration, it was an accident and merely the best take for Sinatra. Audiences interpreted it as Shaw's blurred perspective.

[kristen]

Frank Sinatra never served in the United States Armed Forces. On December 11, 1943, he was officially classified 4-F ("Registrant not acceptable for military service") by his draft board because of a perforated eardrum.

[bryan]

Joe Adams (Psychiatrist) was the first black actor cast in a part that wasn't specified as a black character.

[linda]

The scenes of the convention were filmed at the Old Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue and 49th Street. The last event held there was in February 1968. It was torn down shortly after closing, and today an office tower stands on the site.

[ruby]

At the end of this movie, Major Bennett Marco reads to Rosie from a book that relates citations for Medal of Honor recipients. The book, "The Compact History of the United States Army", is out of print, but was printed in 1956 and written by Colonel Richard Ernest Dupuy.

[sylvia]

One scene was filmed at the Bar and Grill that Frank Sinatra's friend Jilly Rizzo owned in New York City.