Eleanor Iselin

Eleanor Iselin is a fictional character in Richard Condon's 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate". She was portrayed by Angela Lansbury in John Frankenheimer's 1962 film adaptation, and by Meryl Streep (as Eleanor Shaw) in Jonathan Demme's 2004 remake. As played by Lansbury, she ranks #21 on the American Film Institute's list of the top 50 villains in film history.

In the novel

Eleanor is the daughter of an influential senator, who sexually abused her; she loved her father so much she convinced herself that he was "making love" to her. She was heartbroken when he died, and consciously refused to feel anything for anyone from that point on. As an adult, she numbs herself with well-hidden addictions to heroin and painkillers.

She marries and gives birth to a son, Raymond (played by Laurence Harvey in the original film, and by Liev Schreiber in the remake.) Their relationship is extremely dysfunctional; he despises her, but nevertheless has an unhealthy dependence upon her. (The novel implies incest between them; this was hinted at in both versions of the film.) She dominates her son his entire life, turning him into an emotionally crippled manchild virtually incapable of friendship or love. When he volunteers for the Korean War, she uses his accomplishment as public relations for her own career.

After Raymond's father dies, she marries John Iselin (played by James Gregory in the original film, and Dan Olmstead in the remake), a Joe McCarthy-like senator over whom she holds total control. At her instigation, he publicly makes baseless accusations of Communist infiltration of the U.S. government, turning him into an overnight sensation and eventually putting him in line for the Vice-Presidency. Raymond hates her all the more for marrying Iselin, especially after she forbids him to see his first real girlfriend, Jocie Jordan, because she is the daughter of Iselin's chief rival.

Despite the Iselins' rising profile in Washington, however, they have many political enemies, and she resolves to have them all killed. To that end, she makes a deal with a shadowy cabal of Chinese Communists to kidnap Raymond's platoon and brainwash him into killing anyone she or her agents tell him to. She is made Raymond's official "handler," hypnotizing him into committing murder with the phrase "Why don't you pass the time with a game of solitaire?" She makes sure that Raymond becomes a war hero and is given the Medal of Honor for saving his platoon, even though he had in fact murdered two of his own men under hypnosis. Eventually, she plans to use him to kill the Presidential nominee at his party's nomination caucus so Iselin would be handed the Oval Office. It is implied that she feels a small amount of guilt for what she had done to her son, but rationalized it by telling herself she would atone by destroying all Communists once in power.

Her plan starts to unravel when Raymond's former commanding officer, Ben Marco (played by Frank Sinatra in the original film, Denzel Washington in the remake), begins investigating Raymond's conduct during the war after having horrible nightmares of watching Raymond kill his own men. Marco's suspicions mount as he renews his friendship with Raymond and investigates, eventually finding out about his mother's plans.

At about this time, Raymond renews his relationship with Jocie, and the two eventually marry. When his mother learns that Jocie's father plans to oppose Iselin's nomination, she hypnotizes Raymond into killing both Jordan and Jocie. She then orders him to shoot the Presidential nominee at the Party Convention. Marco intercepts Raymond on the way, however, and uses his own brand of hypnosis to convince Raymond to kill his mother and Iselin instead. As she and Iselin prepare to set their plan in motion, Raymond shoots them both dead, and then turns the gun on himself.

Film adaptations

Frankenheimer's adaptation of the novel stuck fairly close to the novel in its characterization of Eleanor Iselin, although it left out her drug addiction and the incestuous component of her relationships with her father and son. In Demme's adaptation, however, the plot was revised, and with it (to a lesser degree) her character.

In the 2004 film, she is a Senator in her own right, using her own last name, Prentiss, in conjunction with her husband's last name, Shaw. The character is frequently referred to as Eleanor Prentiss Shaw. Her husband is little more than an ornament, having died many years before, at which point she takes over his seat in the Senate. She campaigns to have Raymond, rather than her husband, nominated as Vice-President, and to that end had him brainwashed by a group of corrupt corporations, rather than Chinese Communists. (In this adaptation, Raymond serves in Operation Desert Storm, rather than the Korean War.) Finally, "Marco" kills both her and Raymond as they dance together on stage after winning the election.