B Movies and Couch Classics: Albino Alligator • The Manchurian Candidate

ALBINO ALLIGATOR

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

B Movies and Couch Classics

By Dan Dumbauld, of Movie Merchants

ALBINO ALLIGATOR

A running joke in Hollywood is that what every actor really wants to do is to direct. Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey is the latest high profile actor to move behind the camera. Spacey knew that he could not direct a $100 million special effects extravaganza his first time out, so he chose a small drama, Albino Alligator, as his debut.

The film, which was adapted from a stage play, stars Matt Dillon and Gary Sinise as criminal brothers who botch a robbery attempt in Louisiana. Along with their partner, the trio flees the scene leading the police on a high-speed chase. The chase ends in violently dramatic fashion and the three robbers seek refuge in a local tavern.

The bar is owned by M. Emmet Walsh and inhabited by Faye Dunaway, Skeet Ulrich, Viggo Mortensen, and a few more patrons. Dillon, despite his intention of keeping a low profile, soon takes control of the bar by gunpoint. The authorities, headed by Joe Mantegna, believe that the three fugitives are international arms dealers and surround the bar with seemingly every law enforcement officer in the area.

Dillon now has to decide how to get out of the corner he backed into. His brother is severely injured from the car wreck and his partner is emotionally unstable. He also has to deal with the hostages, who are not all who they say they are, and the heavy police artillery outside.

Albino Alligator is an impressive directorial debut for Kevin Spacey. Known for playing screen villains (Seven and Usual Suspects) he gives the film surprisingly sensitive touches. He also creates the same kind of mounting tension between the criminals, the hostages, and the police that Sidney Lumet used in his 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino. Although the majority of the film takes place within the bar, Spacey shows that his directing skills are not limited to capturing fine performances. The spectacular ending to the opening car chase is something that needs to be rewound and watched more than once.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

Today the cliché, on-the-edge of your seat thriller, is thrown at any movie with a plot twist or two. One film that truly defines the expression is The Manchurian Candidate. Director John Frankenheimer’s 1962 classic is a political thriller without peers.

The film is set in the 1950s, after the end of the Korean War. Raymond Shaw, played by Laurence Harvey, returns home to a hero’s welcome after being highly decorated for saving members of his platoon from enemy attack. His overbearing mother, played by Angela Lansbury, and his stepfather, a U.S. congressman, greet him. He turns down their proposition for employment and goes to work for his stepfather’s political adversary.

Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), a member of Shaw’s platoon, has returned home from Korea with nothing but terrible nightmares. As Sinatra starts to examine these dreams, he is forced to come to terms with the reality that his war experience was not at all what it appeared to be. Working with the Pentagon, he uncovers a plot that involves high ranking political officials in Russia, China, and the United States. Sinatra must try to stop it before the plan is successfully carried out to its violent conclusion.

After President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, The Manchurian Candidate was pulled from release because of its chillingly similar story. Ironically, it is said that JFK’s favorite book was Richard Condon’s novel of the same name, which was adapted for the screen by George Awelrod.

Watching Sinatra’s performance you realize that not only was he the most popular singer of his era, but also one of the finest actors. As good as Sinatra is, Angela Lansbury, who was nominated for an Academy Award, is even better as the domineering mother. With the deterioration of Communism, the threat of a red menace does not exist like it did 35 years ago. Despite this, the film is no less thrilling. John Frankenheimer keeps the viewer guessing until the final sequence and the film serves as both political thriller and satire simultaneously.

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