Three Days of the Condor

I first saw Three Days of the Condor (1975) freshman year of college on a Friday night TCM triple-bill with The Day of the Jackal and Marathon Man. Watching so many thrillers so late probably turned my brain to mush, as I found Condor murky and hard to follow.

On a second go-around, I enjoyed Condor a lot more. Sydney Pollack's spy extravaganza is one of the smarter '70s thrillers, mixing its anti-government paranoia with a coherent plot, great cast and ace direction.

CIA analyst John Turner (Robert Redford) takes an early lunch break and returns to find his co-workers murdered. After getting ambushed during an agency "pick-up," Turner goes on the lam, enlisting the reluctant help of Kathy (Faye Dunaway) to evade his superiors. Spymaster Higgins (Cliff Robertson) initially thinks Turner killed his colleagues, but discovers the hit team came from inside the Company. The key to the mystery is Joubert (Max Von Sydow), a French contract killer with inscrutable allegiances.

Three Days of the Condor shrewdly tapped into then-contemporary angst. In 1975 Congress convened the Church Committee, which showed that CIA skullduggery extended far beyond Watergate. Testimony confirmed long-standing rumors about agency involvement in overseas coups and assassinations, domestic surveillance and infiltration of media and student groups. Suddenly no government conspiracy seemed too outlandish or paranoid. Condor's depiction of an Everyman taking on the CIA served as powerful wish fulfillment for disillusioned Americans.

Condor is certainly a fantasy. Pollack takes the Oliver Stone view that the CIA generates its own policy, an awkward dodge that shields policymakers from criticism or responsibility. I'd also think it easier (and less risky) to quietly destroy an intelligence memo than to kill everyone who might have seen it. But the portrayal of a CIA whose leaders lie to and deceive each other is more interesting and believable than the monolithic fever dreams of The Parallax View. Nor has the film especially dated: the covert cornering of natural resources, even at the risk of war, certainly tacks with post-9/11 concerns.

Pollack and writers Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfield craft a thriller that flows smoothly, even if its plot threads get a bit tangled. Pollack makes great use of silence and ambient noise in his set pieces: the opening hit, Turner's slugfest with a Company goon and a tense elevator ride with Joubert. The biggest detriment is Kathy, a useless character clearly shoehorned in as a token love interest. On the other hand, Pollack and Co. can't be blamed for covering all their bases.

Robert Redford is perfect: handsome, a brainy whiz kid and a scrappy fighter, he's more than a match for his perfidious bosses. Faye Dunaway gets a lousy character, developing an acute case of Stockholm Syndrome that makes her jump into bed with Turner within hours of her kidnapping! Cliff Robertson (The Best Man) gets one of his best roles as the reptilian spymaster, and Max Von Sydow's (Shutter Island) amusingly detached hit man makes a delicious villain. John Houseman (Seven Days in May) turns up briefly as a CIA bigwig.

Three Days of the Condor is among the best of the '70s spy thrillers. It maintains the government skepticism of its peers while remaining at least internally plausible, and is plenty entertaining to boot.

Stay tuned for a special Valentine's Day post!