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The Pick: 3 Days of the Condor (1975)
For the rest of the year, we’re focusing on the great career of the late, great Robert Redford. In this year of great contention and struggle, celebrating some of the great American actors and filmmakers has been a solace for many of us here at Cinapse. With the recent passing of a true legend in Redford, it felt like it was only appropriate to do a deep dive into some of his great films. In fact, he was the heartbeat of so many great American films, calling a two month retrospective a “deep dive” is a false moniker. It barely scratches the surface of his almost mythological career. As we explore some films we love and films we are newly experiencing, we invite you to join us for our Redford Retrospective.
In trying to decide which title of Robert Redford’s to take on during our multi-week tribute to the Hollywood legend, I knew it had to be a film that not only called upon his legendary political stance, but also his talents as one of the greatest movie stars who ever lived. 3 Days of the Condor is the perfect choice. It encapsulates the socially conscious side of Redford while also giving him the kind of role that plays on his strengths as an actor and one of the most popular leading men of all time. It also happens to be an incredibly well-made film.
Directed by Sydney Pollack, 3 Days of the Condor casts Redford as Joe, a reader for the CIA who is tasked with pinpointing various parallels between everyday books and top-secret agency plans. When his entire team is assassinated while he’s out of the office, Joe quickly finds himself on the run from those who want to finish the job. Growing desperate by the hour, Joe pulls a gun on Kathy (Faye Dunaway), a young woman whom he convinces to let him hide out in her apartment while he tries to figure out how to stay alive.
It’s hard not to admire the tightness of a script like 3 Days of the Condor. The screenplay, based on James Grady’s novel, features a great setup, a tight structure, carefully measured pacing, and a number of twists that are incredibly well-executed. Add to this a fantastic Dave Grusin score, and the movie is pretty much a winner. 3 Days of the Condor fits beautifully into the class of paranoia thrillers from the 1970s, where secret dark entities were out to get you, and no one anywhere could be trusted. A scene with a woman in dark glasses pushing a stroller down the block from Joe is the perfect moment for this kind of genre entry that’s made even better by the fact that it’s never actually revealed if there’s a baby in there or not.
It’s incredibly chilling the way Joe has to automatically become a ghost, never letting anyone know where he is or even who he is, at times. When Kathy tells him at one point: “I don’t think you’re going to live much longer,” we feel she may be right. The premise and the character’s predicament give Redford some exciting moments to play. Joe is definitely one of the few everyman roles Redford was allowed to inhabit, as much as it’s possible for Redford to pass as an everyman. The instance where he’s able to sell this character best is in the fight scene in Kathy’s apartment between him and an assassin, which is appropriately chaotic. I love that Joe is not a trained fighter and he’s not presented as one. The fight scene is messy and incredibly unpolished with Joe using anything and everything around him to take down the assassin.
Dunaway doesn’t get enough credit for what she brings to the proceedings, not least of all being the film’s surprising comedic relief. A moment shortly after Joe has arrived at Kathy’s has him shouting at her how scared he is, upon which she shouts back: “What are you scared for, you’ve got the gun!?” It’s great seeing how wide-eyed and vulnerable Dunaway is here. For an actress known for playing oftentimes larger-than-life women, Kathy is her most ordinary, uncomplicated character of that era. The strength of the performance comes from the fact that the character has to survive in an extraordinarily complicated situation. She does this by eventually becoming part of the action herself, turning the damsel in distress convention on its head and revealing Kathy to be a woman who is able to make things happen.
It’s always great seeing stars work together, and in 1975, you couldn’t have asked for two better ones. But 3 Days of the Condor plays with the fact that these are two of the most famous people in the world by presenting them as individuals who are largely invisible to most people on the outside. Joe has no one to go to except the agency he can’t really trust, and all Kathy has is a “friend” she’s supposed to meet for a ski trip, which you sense she doesn’t really want to go on. In the midst of all the danger and paranoia, 3 Days of the Condor manages to somehow be a film about two lost souls finding each other and connecting as intimate strangers in that way only lost souls can. The couple’s goodbye scene at the train station is appropriately romantic until the nature of the real world comes back into play, and they realize that this is the end of the road for them.
3 Days of the Condor earned Pollack and Max Von Sydow (chilling as the lead assassin hot on Joe’s tail) nominations from various awards bodies, while Dunaway got a Golden Globe nomination, Grusin’s score was cited by the Grammys, the film won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and also received an Oscar nod for editing. It seems wrong that no one thought to award Redford for his impeccable efforts in front of or behind the camera (he served as an uncredited producer as well). Despite this, 3 Days of the Condor represents prime Redford at what remains his undeniable peak, that space of time when he was able to make the films he wanted to make, many of which set the standard and were destined to stand the test of time.
The hottest Robert Redford has ever been? Only further investigation can confirm, but damn is Redford the cinematic smoke show he’s often famed to be in this particular feature film.
Another situation where I was certain I had seen the movie, but ultimately felt upon “revisit” that this was the first time I’d seen it, I had a legitimate blast with 3 Days Of The Condor. Where revisiting Sneakers felt like seeing the proto-Mission: Impossible, Condor feels like a proto-Bourne. Redford’s CIA agent character isn’t an elite assassin, but rather an academic. And when his team is massacred, and he winds up on the lam and blamed for the crime, it’s only his quick thinking that can save him. Well, that and maybe his smouldering good looks that insinuate him into Faye Dunaway’s bed in the film’s biggest head-scratching misfire. (My understanding of power dynamics won’t allow me to feel that the Redford/Dunaway romance in this film is consensual when it begins at the end of the barrel of a gun, but it’s certainly portrayed as consensual and just feels gross today.) But aside from that flaw, which admittedly wraps up in a suitably complex and human way, Condor is a fantastic paranoid thriller/mystery which finds our underdog outsmarting the conspirators seeking to pin crimes on him at every turn.
Full spoilers: In the ambiguous ending, Condor’s fate is left to audience interpretation as he exposes the powerful cabal that has been hunting him to the New York Times. The final dialog:
Higgins: Hey, Turner! How do you know they’ll print it? You can take a walk. But how far if they don’t print it?
Joe Turner: They’ll print it.
Higgins: How do you know?
Playing in dialogue with All The President’s Men, in which another powerful journalistic institution speaks truth to power and brings down a corrupt regime, Condor leaves open the question whether our protagonist will be saved by journalism’s power to shine light on darkness. And much like my ambivalent experience of watching ATPM through the modern lens of journalism’s collapse of integrity through being bought by billionaires, it felt like contemporary audiences were perhaps assumed to believe that the Times would print Condor’s story and bring him the freedom he’s fought for. Modern me? I can only assume that Condor, relying on the integrity of a major journalistic institution to speak truth to power, is fucked.
This 1975 thriller from Sydney Pollack seems an interesting contrast to last week’s selection, Sneakers. Here Redford plays a reader/researcher for the CIA forced on the run by actions from his own government agency. Instead of the sense of humor infused into Sneakers, 3 Days of the Condor takes itself very seriously. But trust is again a central theme; as Joe Turner (Redford) deals with his uncertain situation, I kept thinking of the Russian attache in Sneakers saying, “You won’t know who to trust.”
3 Days of the Condor shows its age (50 years old) with the groovy scoring by Dave Grusin, including an eyeroll-worthy saxophone solo during the sex scene (a scoring choice which seemed omnipresent in various movies of the 1970s and ‘80s and for which I am not nostalgic). Not to mention the bizarre editing of the same scene, which is probably one of the least sensual sex scenes I’ve seen. Maybe it’s the uncomfortable power dynamics of their situation that ruin any possibility of chemistry between the involved parties. Poor Faye Dunaway’s kidnapped character, Kathy, is written with little depth; Turner isn’t written much better. True, we only have this limited 3-day time period to know him, but what kind of guy sleeps with a new gal the night after his longtime girlfriend is murdered?!?
Because he’s played by Redford, the lead character still comes off as attractive, especially with his popped coat collar and glasses. Even with supporting stars like Cliff Robertson (aka Uncle Ben from 2002’s Spider-Man) and Max von Sydow (The Seventh Seal) involved, the reasoning behind the attack on Turner’s workplace is too convoluted and confusing. However, if you don’t try to read too deeply into the story, the viewer can still appreciate Redford’s take on a man on the run film. Plus, it’s a Christmas movie!
Who knew that cold blooded political assassinations and investigations into the dark, amoral heart of the CIA could look this good? Robert Redford is a fashion icon as he avoids violent political operatives and tries to figure out who murdered his girlfriend (and all his other analyst buddies) in cold blood.
I always found this one a bit of an outlier in the overall political thriller boom in the mid ‘70s. While the vast majority of these films that came out after Watergate were incredibly dour and nihilistic, 3 Days Of The Condor kinda skirts that, with its funkadelic soundtrack, Redford wearing an abundance of haute couture outfits, and the world’s weirdest (most problematic?) cinematic meet-cute, creating a fascinating era relic that is both mean-spirited and bleak, but also kinda sexy?
For those looking for the more classic “men of consequence talking jargon & death in a stark executive suite”, don’t worry, there’s still a whole bunch of that here as well! 3 Days Of The Condor is great at illustrating a bureaucracy that has become so large and bloated that projects as big as an out-and-out coup operation fall between the cracks. It is also spot on in its portrayal of the CIA as an organization whose allegiances move with the wind, quick to recruit assassins that kill their own, and only willing to stop all out war if it seems like they’ll get some blowback.
Feels like this is a near perfect film, able to lead us through a winding conspiracy that shows the true sinister levers of power and how inept they actually are. Honestly, the only thing kneecapping it is the 25 minute sojourn we take with Redford as he abducts Faye Dunaway, a sequence that kinda stops the movie dead. We spend way too much time alternating between Redford learning information the audience is already privy to, and back to Dunaway dealing with a relationship on the rocks and her burgeoning attraction towards Redford (it’s sold as her being enticed by the spectre of death that hangs over him, but, come on; it’s Robert Redford, we didn’t need an excuse). Tighten this up to a quick realization from Redford that the CIA is now hunting him, and Dunaway accepting that she’s attracted to the hottest man alive, and we’ve got a perfect 100 minute film.
Even with that hiccup, 3 Days Of The Condor is still an absolute blast, and one of the only films of this genre that doesn’t make you feel like finishing a bottle of Rye while reading up on how to become a Sovereign Citizen. Check it out, even if it is just to see Redford dressed to the nines and to hear Dunaway say “spy fucker”.
