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48 Stealth, Sexuality, and Cult Status in The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds R EBECCA BELL-METER EAU John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seconds (1966) feature mind manipulation, torture, and kinky sex, topics with a visceral punch for 1960s viewers and an eerie resonance for post-Abu Ghraib audiences. Richard Condon’s novel of The Manchurian Candidate (1959) describes clearly how a domineering mother uses and seduces her own son, and Frankenheimer’s film adaptation depicts this unhealthy sexual relationship as explicitly as possible, given the censorship restrictions of the era. In an interesting shell game, the domineering mother becomes the face of the Communist Party and her assassin son becomes a suicidal hero, a transference that is paralleled in Seconds, when a dissatisfied middle-aged banker has plastic surgery to take on a second life as an artist in the physique of Rock Hudson—an actor eventually known in Hollywood as a sexually bi-curious figure. Both narratives displace anxieties about ambiguous sexuality onto safer political and philosophical targets. The violation of visual and proxemic rules highlights the transgression of sexual boundaries in these groundbreaking films, while the gay, closeted personal lives of the two stars, Laurence Harvey and Rock Hudson, add layers of irony to their roles. This combination of formal and topical innovation, along with serendipitous and dramatic events that mirrored key plot elements of both films, contributed to their complexity and eventual achievement of cult status as two of the films in what David Sterritt calls Frankenheimer’s “Paranoia Trilogy.” Militarism and Momism: A Recipe for Paranoia John Frankenheimer’s adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate was groundbreaking in its evocation of post-fifties paranoia, suspicion of government conspiracies, and anxiety about mind manipulation and implanted memories, explored in a film that inspired imitations for years to come. Frankenheimer expresses the anxious spirit of the post-McCarthy era by questioning the value STEALTH, SEXUALITY, AND CULT STATUS 49 of memory in an age that uses science and psychology to shape both personal and public history. If James Naremore argues that “the ironies in The Manchurian Candidate are in fact so numerous that one cannot be sure whether Frankenheimer and his collaborators were purveying old myths or making fun of them” (134), the film was certainly taken seriously at the time. The Manchurian Candidate’s release coincided with the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, followed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. It was quickly pulled from circulation, an accident of timing that was initially unfortunate, but which eventually contributed to the film’s aura of prescience and unattainable mystery. Frankenheimer’s skeptical portrayal of political and military tactics was perfect for 1962, appearing two years after President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous farewell address, in which he advised constant vigilance: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. (Eisenhower 1037) The kind of suspicion Eisenhower called for came into vogue during the early 1960s, as Hollywood and the nation were beginning to emerge from the era of Joseph McCarthy, blacklists, and the House Un-American Activities Committee . The intelligentsia was becoming increasingly aware of the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency’s brainwashing and drug experimentation, torture methods, and other questionable covert operations, but people were torn over how to feel about these revelations. When it came to massive electroshock treatments, drugs, and hypnotism, according to John Marks, “for career CIA officials, exceeding these limits in the name of national security became part of the job,” while “most academics wanted no part” at this point of techniques that might cause death or madness (Marks 35). The history surrounding the production of The Manchurian Candidate is as fraught with anxiety and paranoia as the film itself. Discrepancies abound even in the account of how the film first came into existence, then became practically unavailable for exhibition, and finally reemerged in an uncut DVD version with the director’s commentary track. It was clear...

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