The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate is a novel that was written in 1959 by Richard Condon with the story centering around the son of a wealthy and prominent political family and was a soldier during the Korean War who was captured as well as the members of his team and they were brainwashed to be communist agents.
I had the chance to see both movies that were made based on this novel, one made in 1962 and the other in 2004.
The 1962 version starred Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, and felt very true to the novel. I enjoyed the movie very much and would recommend it highly.
The 2004 version of the movie stars Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. I am always leery of a remake of a good movie because it usually does not work. In this case I was pleasantly surprised because they took the original concept and put it into modern times to make it interesting and relevant to this generation. Instead of communism, Manchurian Global was a corporation bent on world domination using the character of Meryl Streep who plays a powerful Senator and offers her son for experiments in new forms of brainwashing. The movie was interesting, a little scary because it could be true that companies exist that want to develop new weapons that are bio in nature and too horrid to imagine, and the movie is very well acted.
I think it is interesting to read the novel and watch both movies to get a feel for the fears people have in the different times that we live in, as well as the overall mistrust of those who acquire too much power whether it be a person, corporation, or government.