Pros: Great acting and a plot that has a million twists and turns not to mention intricate little details. Sure, it's chilling and disturbing and surprising at how a simple game of cards can so cruelly manipulate a person.
Cons: Laurence Harvey (Raymond Shaw) may have delivered a great performance but his accent was not acceptable for an All-American boy. There is also the slightly incestuous relationship between him and his mother (the Oscar-nominated Angela Lansbury) which is just disgusting and every once in a while the dialogue (especially between Janet Leigh and Frank Sinatra) is a bit clunky though it is supposedly lifted directly from the source novel.
Recommend: Absolutely
Grade: A
Side Notes:
-Though she is his mother. Lansbury is actually only three years older than Harvey.
-It is odd that the senator's wife (Lansbury) wants first Raymond to marry the enemy's daughter, Jocelyn Jordan (Leslie Parrish), and then has him kill his brand new father-in-law.
-Though there is a high body count, you never see the bullet directly enter the body given the restraints of the Hays code.
-Beware of the milk carton.
-Be even more wary of the Queen of Diamonds.
-Lansbury is a super sick character, married to a buffoon she can boss around.
-It is bizarre that all the men in the unit are brainwashed but only one is trained to be a killer for Russia. Lansbury swears that she had no idea it would be her son, though I find that hard to believe.
-Though Ben (Sinatra) and Rosie (Leigh) are not yet married, they live together anyway.
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