Posted on: Friday, July 16, 2004
Return of the original 'Manchurian Candidate'
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
I couldn't find my original DVD of the Cold War classic "The Manchurian Candidate," now upgraded to a special edition (MGM). About the only problem with having a home DVD library, as most people who have started one know, is the lack of workable checkout system.
I will take the distributor's word, then, that the picture quality has been improved — it looks very good — and that the soundtrack has been effectively remixed.
The extras, however, seem to be unchanged, beginning with the commentary by the director, the late John Frankenheimer. I distinctly remember his story about how Frank Sinatra, who famously preferred to film only one take of every scene, cried (!) upon being told he had been filmed out of focus in his big confrontation scene with Laurence Harvey, who played the brainwashed soldier used by ... Well, if you've never seen this brilliantly plotted drama, I won't spoil it for you here.
It's one of the many fascinating anecdotes about the 1962 political thriller whose reputation was made after it was withdrawn from circulation as a consequence of legal ownership issues that went unsolved until its re-release in 1988.
To everyone's relief, "The Manchurian Candidate" turns out to be as great as everyone remembered. It has somehow remained a cult item, which is presumably why Jonathan Demme felt comfortable doing a remake with Denzel Washington in the role of a tortured GI, Liev Schreiber as the brainwashed Raymond Shaw and Meryl Streep as Shaw's mother (brilliantly played in the original by Angela Lansbury, who does a 15-minute interview on the DVD).
Spy classic
Another Cold War classic gets warmed up on DVD this week: From 1965, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (Paramount) has reawakened my long-delayed desire to write a book about Martin Ritt, a director who made some of the best films of the '60s and '70s (including "Hud," "Hombre," "Sounder" and "Norma Rae").
Based on John Le Carre's novel about a burned-out British spy (Richard Burton) whose retirement is postponed when he pretends to go over to the other side to ferret out a double agent, it revealed the James Bond fantasy of the era for what it was.
There are no extras, but a new anamorphic transfer makes the gray, suitably shadowy cinematography even more effective and reveals every weary worry line on the face of Burton, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his excellent performance.
Sexy in paris
Though Fox Searchlight stuck to its guns and refused to cut "The Dreamers," Bernardo Bertolucci's wistful and sexy drama about romantic and cinematic obsession in 1960s Paris, to avoid an NC-17 rating, the DVD (Fox) is going out in both the version shown in theaters and one trimmed to an R rating.
I can say only that the sex and nudity are critical to the tale of an American student and cinemaphile (Michael Pitt) who becomes involved with a beautiful French woman (Eva Green) and her brother (Louis Garrel) in the summer of the student riots. Bertolucci ("Last Tango in Paris") again connects the political to the personal. He and the film's producers provide a commentary that puts the story in historical context and addresses the sexual content, although how this is handled on the R version, I do not know.
The week's other recent theatrical release, "Never Die Alone" (Fox), is a jumbled inner-city drugs-and-crime drama based loosely on a novel by Donald Goines. It stars rapper DMX as a heroin dealer looking for redemption too late. It's worth renting to hear the commentary, in which director Ernest Dickerson's attempts to justify this mess are constantly interrupted by DMX taking cell-phone calls. Perfect.
As for "Against the Ropes" (Paramount), a ridiculously fictionalized account of Detroit boxing promoter Jackie Kallen (played by Meg Ryan) and her attempts to be taken seriously, the less said, the better.
