The Manchurian Candidate January 19, 2007

“Intelligence officer. Stupidity officer is more like it. Pentagon wants to open a Stupidity Division; they know who they can get to lead it.”—Bennett Marco in The Manchurian Candidate

With suicide bombers from middle-class homes and sleeper cells in European cities, it’s not such a far stretch to imagine war heroes under enemy control. In the 1950s the enemy was Communism, and civilians, as well as moviemakers, imagined the enemy infiltrating the U.S. at every level of society. The Manchurian Candidate explores the possibility of a decorated Korean War veteran, Raymond Shaw, returning home under the sway of Communist-Marxist operators. Featuring marvelous performances from Frank Sinatra as a doubting fellow soldier and Angela Lansbury as Shaw’s controlling mother, the movie is a study in tension—from the political to the sexual to the social. After the film screening in the National Portrait Gallery’s new Nan Tucker McEvoy auditorium, Dr. Kathryn Weathersby, a historian and an expert on Soviet involvement in the Korean War, will comment on the continuing relevance of this riveting 1962 film.

Tickets: $15
CWIHP subscribers, members of the National Portrait Gallery and The Spy Ring: $12
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Official Website: http://www.spymuseum.org/calendar/2007_01_19_prog.asp