John Frankenheimer’s freaky and feverish political thriller, based on Richard Condon’s novel, must have seemed to have come from the future, what with its paranoid plot involving Communist infiltration, right-wing hysteria and political assassinations – all in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis and not long before John F. Kennedy’s murder. A sweaty Frank Sinatra plays Bennett Marco, a Korean War veteran haunted by dreams of being brainwashed during his tour of duty. He tracks down his fellow veterans, including Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), a robotic war hero with a domineering and politically ambitious mother (a venomous Angela Lansbury). From there the movie goes down the rabbit hole, though never too far to lose its satirical relevance to the insanity of real-world politics. Frankenheimer guides all of it with the loopy logic of one of Marco’s nightmares – you’ll certainly never look at ladies’ gardening clubs the same.
