Why I love Angela Lansbury’s per­for­mance in The Manchuri­an Candidate

Although the late Angela Lans­bury played a huge vari­ety of roles over the course of her long career, she was per­haps most asso­ci­at­ed with benign char­ac­ters, thanks to the endur­ing Eglan­tine Price in Bed­knobs and Broom­sticks and detec­tive Jes­si­ca Fletch­er in TV series Mur­der, She Wrote. How­ev­er, while she rarely por­trayed vil­lains, her great­est screen per­for­mance is arguably as the atyp­i­cal­ly mer­ci­less, fanat­i­cal, and fas­ci­nat­ing Eleanor Iselin in John Frankenheimer’s 1962 Cold War con­spir­a­cy clas­sic The Manchuri­an Candidate.

Based on the nov­el by Richard Con­don, the film is a potent blend of para­noid thriller and sharp satire, telling the tale of a return­ing US Kore­an war vet­er­an unwit­ting­ly brain­washed into becom­ing an assas­sin by mys­te­ri­ous Com­mu­nist forces. Lans­bury was com­plet­ing the 1962 fam­i­ly dra­ma All Fall Down with Franken­heimer when the direc­tor offered her the cru­cial part of the Machi­avel­lian wife of a McCarthyesque politician.

Despite being just three years old­er than her onscreen son Lau­rence Har­vey (and hav­ing already been pushed into pre­ma­ture­ly-aged roles at 37), she was intrigued and accept­ed the part, turn­ing egre­gious Hol­ly­wood sex­ism and ageism into a per­son­al artis­tic triumph.

We first meet Eleanor Iselin at a mil­i­tary recep­tion for her son Ray­mond, arriv­ing in Wash­ing­ton to receive a medal for his sup­pos­ed­ly dis­tin­guished war ser­vice. We hear her before we see her, an offi­cious, hec­tor­ing voice loud­ly order­ing a Gen­er­al to wait for her arrival. The cam­era descends from a flut­ter­ing Stars and Stripes to reveal Lans­bury as she snakes her way through a pha­lanx of sta­tion­ary troops, wield­ing her hand­bag like a bat­ter­ing ram as she cuts a path to the front.

She then expert­ly sets up a pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty, aggres­sive­ly shep­herd­ing par­tic­i­pants and press into her desired posi­tions. With­in these few sec­onds, we are made aware of how for­mi­da­ble a force she is: not just bend­ing the mil­i­tary to her will, but drag­ging the media and her sup­pos­ed­ly-pow­er­ful hus­band, the US sen­a­tor John Iselin (James Gre­go­ry), in her wake, all tac­it­ly endorsed beneath her country’s flag.

With her stiffly coif­fured hair, furs, and pearls, Lans­bury appears the epit­o­me of a strong, con­ser­v­a­tive nuclear-fam­i­ly matri­arch. She car­ries her­self with a fierce sense of deco­rum and enti­tle­ment, con­ceal­ing her character’s fear­some ambi­tion beneath a social­ly-accept­able front of suf­fo­cat­ing moth­er­ly love.

She skil­ful­ly manip­u­lates the stuffi­ly patri­ar­chal world around her with a lethal mix of insults and flat­tery, know­ing just when to bruise and when to soothe frag­ile male egos. She address­es her son and her hus­band as her ​“two lit­tle boys,” hiss­ing poi­son over Raymond’s shoul­der until he cov­ers his ears like a child, and eas­i­ly defus­ing Sen­a­tor Iselin’s occa­sion­al and usu­al­ly asi­nine objec­tions to her schemes.

While John is osten­si­bly the politi­cian, it is Eleanor who pos­sess­es the true skills in this are­na, made clear by the scene in which he makes his first anti-Com­mu­nist alle­ga­tions. Although she bare­ly says a word dur­ing the sequence, Lans­bury bril­liant­ly estab­lish­es Eleanor’s dom­i­nance through her facial expres­sions, body lan­guage, and posi­tion with­in the frame. She stands in the fore­ground to the side of the screen, watch­ing the tele­vi­sion feed of the com­mit­tee hear­ing which is hap­pen­ing live in the background.

Her hus­band awaits her sub­tle nod before begin­ning his inter­ven­tion, and she tow­ers over the TV image as he speaks, a calm and col­lect­ed Sven­gali cool­ly co-ordi­nat­ing her polit­i­cal pup­pet show, almost imper­cep­ti­bly mouthing along to his words like a ven­tril­o­quist. She knows just when to stop her blus­ter­ing hus­band and make an exit, phys­i­cal­ly inter­pos­ing her­self between him and the inquis­i­tive Major Mar­co (Frank Sina­tra) under the guise of acci­den­tal­ly get­ting in their way.

Lansbury’s extra­or­di­nary per­for­mance reach­es its peak with the scene in which she final­ly explains the conspiracy’s pur­pose to a seem­ing­ly cata­ton­ic and com­pli­ant Ray­mond. Essen­tial­ly a mono­logue, with George Axelrod’s script requir­ing her to deliv­er dense expo­si­tion and explain her character’s moti­va­tions, it could eas­i­ly have been over­played and awk­ward. Instead, it is utter­ly spell­bind­ing. Shot low in close-up, her eyes burn with zeal­ous fury, while her unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly awry hair­style hints that we are final­ly see­ing the real per­son behind the performance.

Her calm feroc­i­ty is chill­ing­ly con­vinc­ing, her qui­et voice thick with ecsta­t­ic fer­vour as she out­lines her plans to enter the White House ​“with pow­ers that will make mar­tial law seem like anar­chy!” In a bril­liant touch, Lans­bury paus­es for a moment after this ver­bal crescen­do, and in the silence the small, tight smile of tri­umph that flits across her face acts as a ter­ri­fy­ing punc­tu­a­tion mark to her words.

Mak­ing her way to the side of her seat­ed son, her hands move insid­i­ous­ly along his chair, uncom­fort­ably tac­tile and inti­mate, vehe­ment­ly reassert­ing her phys­i­cal domin­ion over Ray­mond to com­pen­sate for her loss of his mind. Grad­u­al­ly, her hands move to cup his face as she kiss­es him pas­sion­ate­ly on the lips, shield­ing this final vio­la­tion from the cam­era as if even Eleanor can bare­ly bring her­self to share the hor­ri­fy­ing­ly inces­tu­ous desires rag­ing beneath her fierce­ly con­trolled exterior.

While Eleanor’s icy con­trol appears to have returned for the finale, calm­ly reas­sur­ing her sweat­ing and fid­get­ing hus­band as they await the planned assas­si­na­tion of the pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, the scene ulti­mate­ly pro­vides the char­ac­ter with her most human moment. In the brief sec­onds between John’s death and her own, a look of sheer ter­ror and bewil­der­ment cross­es her face – the first time we have seen her so com­plete­ly at a loss. She knows her plans have sud­den­ly failed, and worse, she knows that it is her own tor­ment­ed son who is about to kill her: her most prized (and abused) pos­ses­sion final­ly, defin­i­tive­ly, defeat­ing her.

It is a tes­ta­ment to Lansbury’s skill and empa­thy that she gifts a moment of piti­ful vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to so despi­ca­ble a cre­ation. While it seems unlike­ly that many would argue that Eleanor does not deserve her sor­ry fate, Lansbury’s remark­able per­for­mance ensures that she remains a very human mon­ster – arguably among the most com­plex, fright­en­ing, and believ­able antag­o­nists ever to grace the screen.