Three Days of the Condor (1975)

After a remarkable tension build-up, it too light an ending

***** Contains spoiler ******
It's a work which has both very good and mediocre qualities. The build-up of the plot is just smashing. With well-paced action and competent acting, it's a remarkable work to watch.
Problem first erupts little when Redford kidnaps the lady. It is very difficult to believe that a lady would like to be part of the deadly problem Redford is in for just one night charm, no matter how lonely she is.
But the script does not do justice to itself when it converts a book reader into a first class professional spy to start wire tapping, entering other's home in clandestine, threatening people at gun point.
The justification to kill 7 of CIA's own people are all too wishy-washy as well.
Summarily, the good compact work of first half has been liquidated in the second because of a lose script.
October 31, 2008

A Classic Thriller and One of Redford's Best

This is my favorite 70's film. It has a superb script, great acting, and is tautly edited. When viewed today, it does not come across as a period piece, but as a good story well told. Three days of the Condor is one of those rare movies that do the book justice. (By the way, if you like the film, try the novel Six Days of the Condor. You get three more days.)

This is a timeless movie with great production values and all serious film collectors should have Three Days of the Condor in their home library. October 18, 2008

good movie but....

slightly dated as spy thrillers go. good movie, but copy has bad spot. effectd area is not crucial to plot but is annoying. i have seen this bad spot on another copy. so i think this was a transfer problem. September 13, 2008

The Spirit of November

When THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR was released in the mid-70s it was almost certain to be a hit because its two stars, Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, were about the biggest two male and female marquee names in the country. The opening scenario, where Redford returns from his lunch hour to see all of the staff in his Manhattan office (which at first glance seems to be a literary society) gunned down was considered quite sensational in its time and generated quite a lot of word of mouth.

The director, Sydney Pollack, doesn't seem much idea as to what to do with the conspiracy thriller genre, however: there's not much excitement, and even the famous opening scenario might have been more chilling had we seen only what Redford sees when he returns from getting his lunch (instead, we see the killers go through the office gunning everyone down one by one). Pollack seems much more interested in his stars than his story, and Faye Dunaway, as a woman Redford kidnaps while running from the killers, actually does some of her most interesting work in her career with her surprisingly small part. Sometimes called "the last of the great movie stars," Dunaway often played larger-than-life roles during the height of her stardom that seemed worthy of a goddess rather than of an actress. Here, even though the screenplay ridiculously calls for her to play nothing less than the spirit of the month of November ( you'll have to see the actual movie to see what that is supposed to mean), she does some very nice smaller-scale work and has some lovely naturalistic moments, particularly in a nifty little scene where Redford forces her at gunpoint to take a call from her boyfriend. Redford does not fare nearly so well, in part because his hairdo seems more of the star of the piece than even he does: expertly arranged and dyed, it never seems to move even when he's in furious pitched kung-fu battle with an evil mailman. His limitations as an actor are also brought home in his scenes with Cliff Robertson, who is so much more natural with his line readings that he seems in a different league altogether. Even though the budget for this was extremely high for the period, the Dave Grusin score is embarrassingly measly and cheap-sounding; it sounds more appropriate for the underscoring of a Quinn-Martin detective series of the time than for a big-budget film. Also starring John Houseman, who plays a CIA bigwig exactly as if he were playing Professor Kingsfield again (even down to the same bow-ties, tweed jackets, and vests). September 13, 2008

Three Days of the Condor

Received one installment from the pen of the
Late, Great SYDNEY POLLACK . . . I've promised
myself a copy --- for years . . .

UNCOMMON suspense and skill . . . July 1, 2008

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