Three Days of the Condor

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Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film Three Days of the Condor is a 1975 American spy thriller film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow.<ref name="nytimes">Template:Cite web</ref> The screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel was based on the 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor by James Grady.<ref name="nytimes"/>

Set mainly in New York City and Washington, D.C., the film is about a bookish CIA researcher who comes back from lunch one day to discover his co-workers murdered, then subsequently tries to avoid his own murder and outwit those responsible and understand their motives. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Semple and Rayfiel received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay.<ref name="nytimes"/>

Plot

Joe Turner is a bookish CIA analyst, codenamed "Condor", who works at the American Literary Historical Society in New York City, in reality a clandestine CIA office. The staff analyzes print media from around the world. Turner files a report to CIA headquarters on a thriller novel with strange plot elements that has been translated into several languages despite poor sales.

When Turner leaves to get lunch, armed men invade the office. Returning to find his co-workers dead, he leaves and contacts the CIA's New York headquarters in the World Trade Center. He's instructed to meet Wicks, his head of department, who will take him to safety. Turner insists Wicks bring somebody familiar, since he's never met his departmental head. Wicks brings Sam Barber, a friend from their undergraduate years at City College and now a CIA administrator. The rendezvous is a trap and Wicks attempts to kill Turner, who wounds him before escaping. Wicks kills Barber, eliminating him as a witness, and blames Turner for both shootings. Wicks is later killed by an intruder in his hospital room.

Turner encounters Kathy Hale, forces her to take him to her apartment and holds her hostage as he works out what is happening. She comes to trust Turner, and they become lovers. Turner visits Barber's apartment where he encounters Joubert, a European who led the massacre of Turner's co-workers and had disconnected Wicks from life support at the hospital. Turner escapes when Joubert tries to shoot him, but Joubert tracks the license plate on Kathy's car. A hitman disguised as a mailman arrives at Hale's apartment, and Turner kills him.

With Hale's help, Turner abducts Higgins, the deputy director of the CIA's New York division, who identifies Joubert as a freelance assassin working for the CIA. Higgins later discovers that the hitman who attacked Turner worked with Joubert on a previous operation and both reported to Wicks.

Turner discovers Joubert's location using a hotel key found on the hitman. Turner, disguised as a phone company worker, uses the hotel switchboard to trace a phone call from Joubert and learn the name and address of Leonard Atwood, CIA Deputy Director of Operations for the Middle East. Confronting Atwood at gunpoint in his mansion near Washington, D.C., Turner suggests his own original report to CIA headquarters had exposed a rogue CIA operation to seize Middle Eastern oil fields. Fearful of its disclosure, Atwood had privately ordered Turner's section eliminated. Atwood confirms the accusation as Joubert enters and unexpectedly kills him, staging it as a suicide. Atwood's superiors had hired Joubert to eliminate someone who was about to become an embarrassment, overriding Atwood's original contract for Joubert to kill Turner. Joubert suggests that the resourceful Turner leave the country and even become an assassin himself. Turner rejects the suggestion, but heeds Joubert's warning that the CIA will try to eliminate him as another embarrassment, possibly entrapping him through a trusted acquaintance.

Back in New York, Turner has a rendezvous with Higgins near Times Square. Higgins describes the oilfield plan as a contingency "game" that was planned within the CIA without approval. He defends the project, suggesting when oil shortages cause a major economic crisis, the American people will accept harsh measures to keep their comfortable lives. Turner then reveals that he has given full details to The New York Times. Higgins retorts that Turner is about to become a very lonely man and questions whether the whistleblowing will really be published. "They'll print it," Turner defiantly replies. As "Condor" walks away, Higgins shouts after him "How do you know?"

Cast

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Production

The film was shot on location in New York City (including the World Trade Center, 55 East 77th Street, Brooklyn Heights, The Ansonia, and Central Park), New Jersey (including Hoboken Terminal), and Washington, D.C. (including the National Mall).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="otsony">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="dvd">Template:Cite video</ref>

Soundtrack

Template:Infobox album All music by Dave Grusin, except where noted.

  1. "Condor! (Theme from 3 Days of the Condor)" 3:35
  2. "Yellow Panic" 2:15
  3. "Flight of the Condor" 2:25
  4. "We'll Bring You Home" 2:24
  5. "Out to Lunch" 2:00
  6. "Goodbye for Kathy (Love Theme from 3 Days of the Condor)" 2:16
  7. "I've Got You Where I Want You" 3:12 (Grusin/Bahler; sung by Jim Gilstrap)
  8. "Flashback to Terror" 2:24
  9. "Sing Along with the C.I.A." 1:34
  10. "Spies of a Feather, Flocking Together (Love Theme from 3 Days of the Condor)" 1:55
  11. "Silver Bells" 2:37 (Livingstone / Evans; sung by Marti McCall)
  12. "Medley: a) Condor! (Theme) / b) I've Got You Where I Want You" 1:57

Release

The film was released in September 1975, earning $8,925,000 in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by the end of the year.<ref>"All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 44</ref> It went on to earn rentals of $20 million in the United States and Canada from a gross of $41.5 million.<ref name=numbers/> It earned rentals of $32.7 million worldwide.<ref name="dinod"/>

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 87% of 53 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review, and the average rating was 7.4/10; the site's consensus is: "This post-Watergate thriller captures the paranoid tenor of the times, thanks to Sydney Pollack's taut direction and excellent performances from Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

When first released, the film was reviewed positively by Vincent Canby, critic for The New York Times, who wrote that the film "is no match for stories in your local newspaper", but it benefits from good acting and directing.<ref name="canby">Template:Cite news</ref> Variety called it a B movie that was given a big budget despite its lack of substance.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Roger Ebert wrote, "Three Days of the Condor is a well-made thriller, tense and involving, and the scary thing, in these months after Watergate, is that it's all too believable."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

John Simon wrote how the book, Six Days of the Condor, had been rewritten for the film: Template:Blockquote In closing his review, Simon said the lesson he derived from the film was, "we must be grateful to the CIA: it does what our schools no longer do — engage some people to read books."<ref name="simon"/>

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard lists the film as an example of a new genre of "retro cinema" in his essay on history in the now influential book, Simulacra and Simulation (1981):

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Some critics described the film as a piece of political propaganda, as it was released soon after the "Family Jewels" scandal came to light in December 1974, which exposed a variety of CIA "dirty tricks". However, in an interview with Jump Cut, Pollack explained that the film was written solely to be a spy thriller and that production on the film was nearly over by the time the Family Jewels revelations were made, so even if they had wanted to take advantage of them, it was far too late in the filmmaking process to do so. He said that despite both Pollack and Redford being well-known political liberals, they were only interested in making the film because an espionage thriller was a genre neither of them had previously explored.<ref name="jumpcut">Template:Cite journal</ref>

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KGB

According to former Soviet intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov, the fictional clandestine office shown in Three Days of Condor convinced KGB generals to establish an equivalent office in Moscow, the Scientific Research Institute of Intelligence Problems (Template:Langx).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards and nominations

Wins
Nominations

In 1997, The Association of Danish Film Directors (Danske Filminstruktører), on behalf of the director Sydney Pollack, sued Danmarks Radio on the grounds that cropping the film for television compromised the artistic integrity of the original film and that broadcasting the film in a reduced screen version violated Pollack's copyright. However, the case was unsuccessful because the film rights to Three Days of the Condor were not actually owned by Pollack. The case is believed to have been the first legal challenge to the practice of panning and scanning widescreen films on screens with a 4:3 aspect ratio.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Cultural legacy

TV series

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Condor, a television series based on the film and novel, premiered on June 6, 2018, on Audience. The series stars Max Irons and was created by Todd Katzberg, Jason Smilovic, and Ken Robinson. A second season premiered on June 9, 2020, on C More<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and RTÉ2.<ref name="Condor Episode Guide">Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

References

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