My Romance with Movies: Good 70s Films: Three Days of the Condor

1975 Mystery Thriller
From Paramount Pictures
Directed by Sydney Pollack

Starring
Robert Redford
Faye Dunaway
Cliff Robertson
Max von Sydow
John Houseman

This is the fourth collaboration of the director and his blond superstar. They made seven films together and Hollywood has rarely had a more successful director-star pairing. This is the fifth film I have detailed in these pages. Three of the others are a part of my 50 Favorite Films... This Property Is Condemned (1966), Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and Out of Africa (1985) and the fourth, The Way We Were (1973), was detailed in this section on Good 70s Films.

When this project was still in the planning stages, it was going to be steered by British director Peter Yates with Warren Beatty in the lead. Thankfully that didn't work out and after Redford was hired, he insisted that his pal Pollack come aboard. And why not?

I do not regard this film to be in the same league as Out of Africa, certainly, or Jeremiah Johnson, but political thrillers have always been popular and perhaps at no time up to then more than the 70s. Even Redford's next film would be the great, true political thriller, All the President's Men, and later on he would make the less successful Spy Game and later still the wretched Lions for Lambs. He seemed to often look for a place for himself in the genre, political junkie that he is. So there was a commercial aspect to this that nobody missed, including the public, who flocked to movies with Redford, often Pollack and no actress was hotter than Dunaway in the 1970s. The film had buttered-popcorn-and-a-Coke success written all over it.

Not surprisingly, the film, at its core, is about trust. Redford's character trusts too easily but quickly learns to not be so naive. Dunaway's character trusts no one and initially meeting Redford increases that (he kidnaps her) but learns to trust even through difficult circumstances.

Condor is the code name for Redford's CIA researcher. The name on his building, American Literary Historical Society, is a ruse but one suspects that as we notice that everyone needs to be buzzed in, the receptionist has a gun in her drawer, cameras are everywhere and what appears to be a former hat check room houses an armed guard. Redford later explains to Dunaway that his job is to read books. In fact, he and a few coworkers read all the books published in the world and then feed the facts regarding plots, codes, dirty tricks and so on into the computer to check against actual CIA plans and operations, looking for leaks. (What???... I always say to myself when I hear it. Sounds a little too Hollywood to me.)

We briefly meet his six coworkers (including a woman with whom he's obviously involved) before Redford sneaks out a rear door to pick up lunches for all. While he's doing so, we are aware of a sinister plot developing on the street. There's a suspicious man in a car, a postal carrier and a very mysterious von Sydow who appears to be orchestrating it all. Or is he?

In the film's most exciting segment, the mailman is buzzed in and is quickly joined by two others who proceed, floor by floor, room by room, to kill everyone. It is discovered later that an eighth person was murdered in his home. After discovering the horror, Redford becomes keenly aware that he was intended to be another victim. He panics, grabs the receptionist's gun and flees, darting through the streets of Manhattan. He calls CIA superiors that he has never met and becomes so suspicious of what they say and how they sound and realizing that he is not safe, he kidnaps Dunaway from a sporting goods store.

He keeps her terrified as he holes up in her street-side apartment, trying to gather his wits. Even though he tells her what has happened and what little he knows, she remains deeply suspicious. After watching TV news together, she realizes that some, at least, of what he says is true, and in a moment of setting her mistrust aside, agrees to help him find out what's going on.

That same mailman finds Redford at Dunaway's apartment and a second gripping scene develops among the three of them.

Before they set off on their journey, they have a bed scene and she soon confesses she has fallen in love with him. Oh please. I presume it's just unthinkable to have two of the 70s' most bankable stars not roll around in a bed. It didn't ruin the movie for me but it was an unnecessary distraction... why stop the action for a bed scene, and an implausible one at that? (In just my last posting, a review on Wind River, I praised it, another thriller, for not wasting our time with a superfluous love story.) While we're at it, author James Grady's novel was called Six Days of the Condor, but to tighten it all up three days were cut out for the film. And yet on the second day a highly-suspicious and annoyed Dunaway sleeps with her captor and on the third day professes love. Uh-huh.

Dunaway helps Redford get Robertson, one of his anonymous bosses, away from lunch and into Redford's clutches. All the top male actors, except for Redford, are sinister and smarmy at some level although as the story progresses, layer after layer is pulled back to reveal the truth... who is responsible for what and why has all this occurred in the first place?

As Redford goes off on his own discovery, the story gets a little complicated, if not murky. Adding to that fact is that Redford makes some assumptions based on lies which doesn't help the viewer's understanding any more than it does Redford's. That isn't the complaint it may sound like since, let's face it, if it were real life, it would be murky and complicated. I've heard complaints that the film went astray in the last half hour but that's not my take. I will say if you came away not thinking everyone at the CIA is a thug, you must have seen a different flick.

Our leading man turns in his usual polished performance and I confess to hitting the pause button a few times on some of his closeups (he sure gave good hair). This was not one of his message films so he probably didn't do a lot of preparation for this film, designed to entertain, which it does well. If he just walked on the set and delivered his matinee-idol best, looking a little harried and pissed now and then, nobody does it better.

Redford has allegedly said that while he liked her, he found Dunaway difficult to work with (which he later amended to say she was too easily distracted). We've heard that before although not everyone said they liked her. I've always wondered why she did this film, although she knew without question it would be a high-visibility picture and that alone could be the reason. It's also been said that she very much wanted to work with Redford and Pollack as well. Adding Redford to her collection of male costarring gods of the day was a coup. None of this could hurt her standing with the public and there was no doubt it was her golden decade.

Still, her role was little more than the girl. Despite her lead-actress stature, it was hardly a starring role. She doesn't figure into the finale, not even the obligatory running down 5th Avenue and jumping into his arms, happy that he's survived all the mayhem. She also knew this was a buddy picture... Redford and Pollack. Redford's company, Wildwood Enterprises, co-produced. She must have known there was nothing here to merit great acting praise, not because of how she delivered but because of how the part was written. But the odd thing, I found it to be one of Dunaway's most sincere and unvarnished performances.

Max von Sydow

A requirement for the film to work is finding actors for the key supporting roles. Projecting menace is the name of the game. If I saw Houseman, that old fuss-budget, in a comedy, he would still radiate ominousness... never smiling, crisp and condescending in his speech and manner and glaring through those beady eyes. Von Sydow's tall, elegant, passive, mute-like performance hides a lethal nature that makes one jumpy just watching him. Robertson operates the opposite of the first two. Whatever they are, they are obvious... him not so. He appears sincere, the type who would wrap his arm around you and then stab you in the back.

What I enjoyed so much about Three Days of the Condor was that it had a wonderfully old-fashioned feel to it. Despite being made in 1975, I thought it had more of a 1945 feel to it. No one parachuted into the city, there were no tanks on the street, I saw no stun guns and most of the people associated with the future CGI weren't even born yet. It is a thriller that actually thrills.

A bittersweet note is the viewing of the World Trade Center. It was always a must for New York filming. It's also in the trailer, next: