Orestes2.0002_CondonFrankenheimer

J. Frankenheimer, dir. The Manchurian Candidate, Metro Goldwyn Meyer, 1962. Screenplay by George Axelrod is based upon the novel by Richard Condon.

Axelrod’s screenplay retains definitive, thematic likeness from Condon’s novel.In both the novel and Frankenheimer's film, Raymond becomes an Orestes.

In the Frankenheimer film, the first overt reference comes at minute 105, when Bennett and Raymond are good and drunk.

Shaw: “My mother is a terrible, terrible woman. ... Oh, but you don’t want to hear about my mother.”

Marco: “I’m interested. It’s rather like listening to Orestes gripe about Clytemnestra.”

In the Condon novel, the references to the oresteia begin earlier and with more apparatus.

p. 22 f. “Marco always encouraged Sgt. Shaw to tell him [stories about his life] when they were on patrol. ... The captain liked to hear the story because...it was like hearing Orestes gripe about Clytemnestra. ... He was a reader.”

p. 24 “Raymond...had large glaucous eyes with very large whites, like those of a carousel horse pursued by the Erinyes, those female avengers of antiquity.”

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