Manchurian Global represents the American loss of trust in the corporation to the extreme — it is Evil Inc. During a time of protests over globalization and media conglomeration, white-collar perp-walks, wrong-headed mergers that enrich executives but force massive layoffs, million-dollar corporate bacchanalias and indicted energy company executives on a first-name basis with the president, many are willing to believe corporations have the access and avarice to do anything. If Manchurian Global does not exist, it is recognizable enough to contemporary movie viewers that it might as well be trading on Nasdaq. (Ticker symbol: BLZB.)

Contrast this with a time when American corporations inspired nearly blind faith in their stability and stewardship — consider the third-generation Detroit assembly-line autoworker or the college grad who went to work for IBM and retired from management 45 years later, having spent his entire career with one company.

"The notion that businessmen were examples of probity and prudence is classic in all the '50s movies. ... Now, we think of irrationality in business as everyday lunch meat," said Philip Scranton, professor of history of industry and technology at Rutgers University.

And as many of the 20th century's evils have been dispatched — communism, Nazism, fascism — barely restrained capitalism-gone-bad has persevered as a go-to hobgoblin. Some may see the Kozlowskis and Rigases and Fastows of today and think of the robber barons of the 19th century, who were so feral and exploitative that they led to government regulation and the rise of labor unions.

The U.S. financial crises of the '70s — stagflation, the oil shortage, the rise of foreign competition — were followed by the ethical lapses of the '80s (S&L meltdown, junk-bond high jinks) and the legerdemain of the '90s (Enron, et al.), said Christine Rosen, a professor of business history at the University of California-Berkeley, contributing to the "The Manchurian Candidate's" potential resonance with 2004 movie audiences.

"The Corporation," a current Canadian documentary, takes the novel approach of psychoanalysis in arguing that capitalism is ultimately an unsustainable system. Noting that U.S. law recognizes corporations as individuals, giving them broad rights, it asks the question: What sort of a person would a corporation make?

The answer, according to a lefty's laundry list that includes Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky: a psychopath who tries to manipulate thought, lies without guilt and is dangerous to himself and others.

If you're a conspiracy theorist, you hear "Manchurian Global" and think "Carlyle Group," the world's largest private equity firm, which buys and sells companies like Monopoly properties and whose roster of current and former staff and advisers includes George H.W. Bush, James Baker, Richard Darman and former British Prime Minister John Major. Director Jonathan Demme even said that Carlyle was one of the models for his film.

Movies such as "The Manchurian Candidate," "The Corporation" and, to a degree, "Fahrenheit 9/11" tap into American ambivalence toward capitalism, Rosen said.

Are corporations good or evil? Or are they amoral and pragmatic?

The recently released "Catwoman" features a cosmetics company that makes an addictive skin cream — stop using it and your face deteriorates. Exposure to the company's toxic waste somehow metamorphoses Halle Berry into Catwoman, giving her superpowers not demonstrated by residents of, say, Love Canal.

On the other hand, Michael Moore's 1989 "Roger & Me" details the devastating consequences of General Motors' decision to pull its manufacturing plants out of Flint, Mich. No one accuses former GM chief executive Roger Smith of intending to turn Flint into an urban ruin where people eat rabbits to survive, yet it happened when GM, and its 30,000 jobs, left.