Movies: The Manchurian Candidate (1962) & The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Just watched the two Manchurian Candidates back-to-back. Good thing I did because the newer one would've been pretty incomprehensible without the former as a guide.

The 1962 is a taut psychological drama that develops some serious tension. It is well-acted and surprisingly modern, and topical today. There are movie-making tricks that elevate it above the level of a normal drama.

The 2004? It's okay. Not very well edited -- develops no tension, the pacing is way off -- and although Meryl Streep is a fine actor, her portrayal of Ellen Prentiss Shaw has NOWHERE NEAR the lethal venom of dear sweet Angela Lansbury -- who absolutely ruled the 1962.

So many stories (whatever medium they are presented in) succeed or fail depending upon the villain. Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey really rocked that movie.

Yes, Lansbury was nominated for an Oscar for her role, but was up against To Kill a Mockingbird, The Birdman of Alcatraz and The Miracle Worker (she lost to Patty Duke).

The movie was of course withdrawn from circulation for a decade after Kennedy was killed in eerily similar circumstances.

What a year for pictures though: Mutiny on the Bounty, Lawrence of Arabia, The Music Man, Days of Wine and Roses, Hatari!, The Longest Day, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Tender Is The Night, Tara's Bulba.

Another thing that favors the older version over the new: there is a delicious and somehow realistic irony in the first movie, in that Angela Lansbury plays a rabid anti-communist crusader -- who just happens to be working for the Soviet Union.

The new one, by changing the setting to 1991 and the Gulf War, and the bad guys from Russia to a corporation named Manchurian Global, loses all of that irony.  Now the corporation (a dead wringer for Blackwater) is all about money, and there is no ideology anywhere to create tensions.  The plot is a lot less believable and weighty because of this -- and as I said, the movie would be pretty much unfathomable without a direct comparison to 1962's.