John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films. Among his credits were Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), The Train (1964), Seconds (1966), Grand Prix (1966), French Connection II (1975), Black Sunday (1977), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), and Ronin (1998).
Ronin is a 1998 American action thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer and written by John David Zeik and David Mamet, under the pseudonym Richard Weisz. It stars an ensemble cast consisting of Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean, and Jonathan Pryce. The film is about a team of former special operatives hired to steal a mysterious, heavily guarded briefcase while navigating a maze of shifting loyalties. The film was praised for its realistic car chases in Nice and Paris.
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury was an Irish-British and American actress and singer. In a career spanning over seventy years, she played various roles across film, stage, and television. Although based for much of her life in the United States, her work attracted international attention.
Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film about a military-political cabal's planned takeover of the United States government in reaction to the president's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The film, starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner, was directed by John Frankenheimer from a screenplay written by Rod Serling and based on the novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, published in September 1962.
Richard Thomas Condon was an American political novelist. Though his works were satire, they were generally transformed into thrillers or semi-thrillers in other media, such as cinema. All 26 books were written in distinctive Condon style, which combined a fast pace, outrage, and frequent humor while focusing almost obsessively on monetary greed and political corruption. Condon himself once said: "Every book I've ever written has been about abuse of power. I feel very strongly about that. I'd like people to know how deeply their politicians wrong them." Condon's books were occasionally bestsellers, and a number of his books were made into films; he is primarily remembered for his 1959 The Manchurian Candidate and, many years later, a series of four novels about a family of New York gangsters named Prizzi.
Suddenly is a 1954 black and white American noir crime film directed by Lewis Allen with a screenplay written by Richard Sale. The drama stars Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden, and features James Gleason and Nancy Gates.
Christina Sinatra is an American businesswoman, film producer, Hollywood agent, and memoirist.
The Manchurian Candidate is a 2004 American neo-noir psychological political thriller film directed by Jonathan Demme. The film, based on Richard Condon's 1959 novel of the same name and a reworking of the previous 1962 film, stars Denzel Washington as Bennett Marco, a tenacious, virtuous soldier, Liev Schreiber as Raymond Shaw, a U.S. Representative from New York, manipulated into becoming a vice-presidential candidate, Jon Voight as U.S. Senator Tom Jordan, a challenger for Vice President, and Meryl Streep as Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, also a U.S. Senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of Raymond Shaw.
James Gregory was an American character actor known for his deep, gravelly voice and playing brash roles such as Schaffer in Al Capone (1959), the McCarthy-like Sen. John Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the audacious General Ursus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), and crusty Inspector Frank Luger in the television sitcom Barney Miller (1975–1982).
Reggie Nalder was a prolific Austrian film and television character actor from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. His distinctive features—partially the result of disfiguring burns—together with a haunting style and demeanor led to his being called "The Face That Launched a Thousand Trips".
George Axelrod was an American screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director, best known for his play The Seven Year Itch (1952), which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe. Axelrod was nominated for an Academy Award for his 1961 adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and also adapted Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
Henry Silva was an American actor. A prolific character actor, Silva was a regular staple of international genre cinema, usually playing criminals or gangsters. His notable film appearances include ones in Ocean's 11 (1960), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Johnny Cool (1963), Sharky's Machine (1981), and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999).
Seconds is a 1966 American psychological horror science fiction film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, and Will Geer. The film tells the story of a middle-aged New York banker who, disillusioned with his life, contacts an agency known as "The Company" which specializes in providing "rebirths" under new identities and appearances altered by plastic surgery. The screenplay by Lewis John Carlino was based on the 1963 novel of the same title by David Ely.
All Fall Down is a 1962 American drama film, adapted from the novel All Fall Down (1960) by James Leo Herlihy, the author of Midnight Cowboy (1965). John Frankenheimer directed and John Houseman produced. The screenplay was adapted by playwright William Inge and the film starred Eva Marie Saint and Warren Beatty. Upon its release, the film was a minor box-office hit. Together with her performance in Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Angela Lansbury won the year's National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was entered in the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.
The Gypsy Moths is a 1969 American drama film, based on the 1955 novel of the same name by James Drought and directed by John Frankenheimer. The film tells the story of three barnstorming skydivers and their effect on a Midwestern American town, focusing on the differences in values between the town folk and the hard-living skydivers.
The Manchurian Candidate is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy.
Ferris Maynard Webster was an American film editor with approximately seventy-two film credits. He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Film Editing for his work on Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and The Great Escape (1963).
Prisoner of War is a 1954 American war–drama film directed by Andrew Marton and starring Ronald Reagan, Steve Forrest, Dewey Martin and Oskar Homolka.
Lionel Lindon, ASC was an American film cameraman and cinematographer who spent much of his career working for Paramount.
The Bamboo Prison is a 1954 American Korean War film–drama film directed by Lewis Seiler and starring Robert Francis, Brian Keith, Dianne Foster, and Jerome Courtland. The working title was I Was a Prisoner in Korea. The US Army denied their co-operation to the producers.
