3 Days of the Condor [Blu-ray]

Director: Sydney Pollack Sydney Pollack

Overview

"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.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/29/2023
UPC:	0738329263812
Original Release:	1975
Rating:	R
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	16,229

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Robert Redford	Joe Turner
Faye Dunaway	Kathy
Cliff Robertson	Higgins
Max von Sydow	Joubert
John Houseman	Monsieur Wabash
Walter McGinn	Barber
Addison Powell	Atwood
Michael Kane	Wicks
Tina Chen	Atwood
Don McHenry	Dr. Lappe
Michael Miller	Fowler
Jess Osuna	Mitchell
Dino Narizzano	Thomas
Helen Stenborg	Mrs. Russell
Patrick Gorman	Martin
Hansford Rowe	Jennings
Carlin Glynn	Mae Barber
Hank Garrett	Mailman
Arthur French	Messenger
Jay Devlin	Tall Thin Man
Frank Savino	Jimmy
Robert Phalen	Newberry
John Randolph Jones	Beefy Man
Garrison Phillips	Hutton
Lee Steele	Heidegger
Ed Crowley	Ordinance Man
John P. Connell	TV Reporter
John Connell	TV Reporter
Norman Bush	Alice Lieutenant
James Keane	Store Clerk
Ed Setrakian	Customer
Myron Natwick	Civilian
Michael Prince	Civilian
Carol Gustafson	Landlady
Sal Schillizi	Locksmith
David Bowman	Telephone Worker
Eileen Gordon	CIA Receptionist
Robert Dahdah	Santa Claus
Steve Bonino	Kid
Jennifer Rose	Kid
David Allen	Kid
Glenn Ferguson	Kid
Paul Dwyer	Kid
Marian Swan	Nurse
Dorothi Fox	Nurse
Ernest Harden Jr.	Teenager
Harmon Williams	CIA Agent

Technical Credits

Lorenzo Semple Jr.

David Rayfiel

Sydney Pollack	Director
Dino DeLaurentiis	Executive Producer
Augie Lohman	Special Effects
Stanley Schneider	Producer
Lorenzo Semple Jr.	Screenwriter
David Rayfiel	Screenwriter
Arthur Piantadosi	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

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.

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