Three Days of the Condor (1975) Conspiracy Thriller that ages like a Fine Wine (Review)

Even with them being the source of consternation for critics and audiences alike, tropes are an invaluable resource for the film writer – either as a framework to subscribe to or one to rebel against. A film responsible for the installation of many tropes is Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (1975), which became the blueprint for the manhunt movie. Robert Redford and Pollack join for their third collaboration in a loose adaptation of James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor.

Redford is Joe Turner, an analyst for the C.I.A., studying published books from around the world for coded messages. In discovering an unusual anomaly, his life, colleagues and work come crashing down around him with his office being shot dead by Max Von Sydow’s Joubert, Turner (codename Condor) only survives by going out for lunch. Upon finding out that the execution of his office was on the order of C.I.A, he is left with nowhere to go, only surviving the initial onslaught by picking a pedestrian at random (Faye Dunaway). This leaves Condor in the field unsure of who to trust and what to do next, paranoia that sees every error or misjudgement carrying fatal consequences.

The only difference between Joe Turner and Jason Bourne is one is a military weapon and one is an analyst, otherwise, the core of both men’s stories are incredibly alike. That is only one example, there are countless cinematic examples that borrow DNA from Three Days of the Condor and it’s understandable that modern audiences can look on classics with contempt with their structure and characterisation being overly familiar.

There are two ways in which to look at this. The first is the aforementioned defeatism and belief that modern cinema is superior and the more positive reading is to look at Pollack’s film as exceptionally prescient. We live in the internet age and the omnipresence of state control has created an unprecedented paranoia mid the populous, look no further than the ‘snooper’s charter’. This is the world that Joe Turner and Condor occupy – a world of fear and distrust. Even if Three Days of the Condor isn’t overly concerned with technology beyond the telephone, the more we advance technologically the more potent the film becomes. Furthermore, contemporaries to this classic are quick to age thanks to tying themselves to the technology of the age they are made in. In being removed from that, however, Three Days of the Condor retains all of its terrifying potentials, creating a film that gets better the older it gets – a rare attribute in a youth-obsessed medium.

Politics and purpose can only take a film so far, it requires a human element to safeguard that classic status. That human element is Robert Redford and the much less successful Faye Dunaway with the latter beginning life as a damsel in distress evolving into a co-collaborator and more. A character that functions to depict the change Redford has been subjected to, showing what he needs to do to stay alive and the victimisation he heaps upon a poor bystander; for that person to go on ad become an ally is truly the only missed step in Semple Jr. and Rayfiel’s screenplay. Beyond that, the relationship between Dunaway and Redford is – how can I describe this? – rapey.

This is from an era when Robert Redford was at the peak of his powers and on a run of films any actor would envy. As Turner (Condor) he is confident in his intelligence and anxious in the revelation that he bosses aren’t paradigms of good. Despite being forced into violence on both his peers and innocent civilians, Redford is always empathetic, and coolly charismatic. Ending with one of the greatest final lines of dialogue in cinema, a line that’s simultaneously triumphant and a perfect summary of how powerless we individuals are against a corrupt or inept state. A bleak sentiment for an ageless film to end on.

 Thanks for reading our review of Three Days of the Condor

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