Three Days of the Condor

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

"His code name is Condor. In the next 24 hours, everyone he trusts will try to kill him." As the ads ominously announced, a low-level spook confronts the unfathomable in Sydney Pollack's 1975 political thriller, adapted from the James Grady novel Six Days of the Condor. CIA researcher Joe Turner (Robert Redford) returns from lunch to find the entire staff of his small New York office assassinated. When he meets his boss (Cliff Robertson) at another location to tell him what happened, someone tries to shoot Turner as well. On the run from the cops and his agency, a desperate Turner resorts to holing up with innocent civilian Kathy (Faye Dunaway), who becomes his only ally. Joe decides to save himself the only way possible -- by going to The New York Times. But will it work? One of a cycle of conspiracy films from the 1970s that also included The Parallax View (1974) and Redford's All the President's Men (1976), Three Days of the Condor pits a working everyman (albeit a CIA everyman) against a far-reaching conspiracy, as it also criticizes the CIA during a period of increasing publicity about federal wrongdoing, from the Pentagon Papers through Watergate and other congressional investigations. The challenge of negotiating New York City, shot on location, becomes one more sign of the forces that Joe must face. With its timely subject matter, taut suspense, and sympathetic Redford hero, Three Days of the Condor became a substantial hit. Balancing the conspiracy cycle's pessimism with a margin of attenuated hope, Three Days of the Condor suggests that one man can still discover the truth, but whether it helps him remains to be seen. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Surround
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Features:
  • Widescreen version enhanced for 16x9
  • Dolby Digital: English 5.1 Surround; English Dolby Surround
  • English subtitles
  • Interactive menus
  • Scene selection
  • Theatrical trailer

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Editing - 1975 (Donald Guidice, Frederic Steinkamp)

• Edgar Allan Poe Awards

•     Won Best Screenplay - 1975 (David Rayfiel, Lorenzo Semple, Jr.)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - 1975 (Faye Dunaway)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Robert Redford - Joe Turner
       Faye Dunaway - Kathy Hale
       Cliff Robertson - Higgins
       Max von Sydow - Joubert
       John Houseman - Wabash
       Carlin Glynn - Mae Barber
       Addison Powell - Atwood
       Mike Kane - Wicks
       Walter McGinn - Sam Barber
       Arthur French - Messenger

• Director:

  Sydney Pollack

• Producer:

  Stanley Schneider

• Screenwriter:

  David Rayfiel, Lorenzo Semple, Jr.

• Book Author:

  James Grady

• Cinematographer:

  Owen Roizman

• Composer (Music Score):

  Dave Grusin

• Editor:

  Franz Steininger, Frederic Steinkamp, Donald Guidice

• Production Designer:

  Stephen B. Grimes

• Art Director:

  Gene Rudolf

• Costume Designer:

  Joseph G. Aulisi

• Set Decorator:

  George DeTitta, Sr.

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Dennis L. Maitland, Arthur Piantadosi

• Special Effects:

  Augie Lohman

• First Assistant Director:

  Peter R. Scoppa

REVIEW:

• One of the most memorable paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor never loses its focus as a tense, compelling exercise in suspense. The plot rests on the premise that everyone with power is corrupt; Pollack and writers Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel keep the proceedings from devolving into the preposterous or unconvincing. True to form, Robert Redford represents the powerless, non-corrupt masses as the film's bookish CIA researcher Turner. Unlike some of the bleaker examples of the genre (1974's The Parallax View), Redford's character ultimately outwits the system and finds a way to fight the corruption, much as he would the following year in All the President's Men. Redford's charisma smoothes over some of Condor's less-believable moments, and Sydney Pollack directs in the distinctively gloomy but lively style common to 1970s films. This was the fourth film on which the director and star teamed up; they would continue to work together on movies such as 1985's Out of Africa and 1990's Havana. ~ Brendon Hanley, Rovi