Discussing Two Films

  Critical Essay: Discussing Two Films Order Description discussing two films, The Manchurian Candidate by John Frankenheimer released in 1962 and Don Siegel’s Telefon released in 1977. It is informative to mention that both films are adaptations of novels, Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate (1959) and Walter Wager’s Telefon (1975). Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate was released at the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis during John F Kennedy’s presidency in 1962. This film encompasses the political anxieties of the time: the communists, brain warfare, and the assassination of the President of the United States. It was the height of the Missile Crisis taking the US was to the brink of nuclear war, and—a year later, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This film definitely falls under the “film noir” category. Although it was not released at the time of the “classical film noir period” between the 1940s and late 1950s, it still exhibits all of the characteristics of such a film. Don Siegel’s Telefon is somewhat of a post-Cold War update to Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate. It touches upon the same topic of brain warfare tactics the communist bloc utilized on the United States. It is a thriller that reintroduces the cold war vestiges of brain warfare coming back to destabilize the world at a time where political tensions were calming down.