Probably the most enduring and essential inventive relationship that Robert Redford had all through his profession was with director Sydney Pollack, who first directed Redford within the 1966 drama movie This Property Is Condemned, which gave him his first main movie function. After reuniting with the 1972 Western Jeremiah Johnson and the 1973 hit romantic drama The Manner We Had been, Pollack and Redford ventured into the espionage style with the 1975 spy thriller Three Days of the Condor. In it, Redford performs Joe Turner, a mild-mannered CIA researcher who, after getting back from lunch to seek out all his colleagues murdered, should keep alive whereas uncovering the motive behind the killings.
Three Days of the Condor unfolds as a relentless cat-and-mouse thriller, by which Turner makes the surprising discovery that there exists a CIA inside the CIA. By Turner’s fixed state of concern, Three Days of the Condor chillingly embodies the distinctly paranoid temper that gripped the US within the instant aftermath of the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon’s resignation. For Redford, who died on the age of 89 on September 16, 2025, Three Days of the Condor is arguably probably the most purely thrilling movie of his profession, along with being top-of-the-line spy thrillers ever made.
Robert Redford’s Joe Turner Learns To Belief No One in ‘Three Days of the Condor’
Within the custom of the basic Hitchcockian protagonist who turns into endangered on account of realizing or seeing an excessive amount of, Three Days of the Condor locations Robert Redford’s character, CIA researcher Joe Turner, within the place of being marked for dying merely due to a e-book that he learn. Because the movie opens, he works on the American Literary Historic Society, a entrance for a clandestine CIA workplace in New York. There, Turner, whose code identify is “Condor,” and his colleagues primarily learn books and different periodicals to discern political messages from them.
One among Turner’s seemingly innocuous e-book experiences unwittingly exposes a rogue CIA operation, prompting its unauthorized chief to have the workplace systematically worn out. In the future, after he makes the fateful choice to go away the workplace constructing by a facet exit to get lunch for himself and a few of his colleagues, a European CIA murderer named Joubert, performed by Max von Sydow, enters the constructing and proceeds to kill everybody inside, together with a younger girl with whom Turner clearly had heat emotions for. After discovering the bloodbath, a shocked Turner calls his CIA contact, who assures him that he will probably be protected. Nonetheless, a subsequent rendezvous seems to be a entice, as one other CIA murderer makes an attempt to kill Turner, who escapes with the information that he’s not in a position to belief anybody.
The perpetrators of the flowery conspiracy rationalize their actions by the idea that the dying of a single harmless citizen, or perhaps a dozen, is a suitable value to pay to satisfy a better public good, which on this case includes securing oil from the Center East. The astonishing degree of ethical ambiguity in Three Days of the Condor is embodied by Turner’s relationship with the shadowy Joubert, who, after being his relentless pursuer and would-be killer for a lot of the movie, finally emerges as Turner’s handler, protector, and supreme advisor. Certainly, Joubert’s recommendation and predictions turn into particularly prescient for Turner, who, by no fault of his personal, finds himself with no place to name house.
This 1974 Political Assassination Thriller Is a Good Companion Piece to ‘Three Days of the Condor’
One of many closest contemporaries that Robert Redford had in his profession was Warren Beatty. Whereas Beatty and Redford by no means labored collectively, not like Redford’s iconic pairings with Paul Newman within the basic movies Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child and The Sting, they had been nonetheless deeply united of their dogged pursuit of a wider vary of roles, their political activism, and particularly their severe directorial ambitions. Certainly, the yr after Redford turned the primary actor in historical past to win the Academy Award for Greatest Director for his path of the 1980 drama movie Odd Individuals, Beatty obtained the glory for his path of the 1981 epic historic drama movie Reds.
Earlier than Three Days of the Condor, Beatty starred within the 1974 political thriller movie The Parallax View, by which Beatty performs Joseph Frady, a newspaper reporter whose preliminary investigation right into a senator’s assassination results in a a lot wider conspiracy. Launched lower than two months earlier than Nixon turned the primary U.S. president to resign, The Parallax View, like Three Days of the Condor, arrived amid a deeply cynical public temper that was extremely receptive to conspiracy theories and mistrust of presidency.
This overwhelming sense of defeatism is mirrored in The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor with their decidedly downbeat endings, by which the villains are just about unpunished for his or her murderous covert actions. Greater than 50 years after their preliminary launch, The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, together with the 1971 psychological thriller Klute and Redford’s 1976 political thriller All of the President’s Males, proceed to function a stark warning for inclined audiences to consistently look over their shoulders and belief nobody.
‘Three Days of the Condor’ Is a Superior Thriller
Whereas Three Days of the Condor was a business and demanding success on the time of its launch, the movie was shortly overshadowed by the 1976 political thriller movie All of the President’s Males. In that movie, Robert Redford performs journalist Bob Woodward, whose reporting, alongside that of Carl Bernstein, unraveled the Watergate conspiracy and primarily introduced down Richard Nixon’s presidency. The ability of the media additionally figures prominently in Three Days of the Condor, by which Redford’s Joe Turner realizes that the simplest means to make sure his survival and expose the reality is to share his outlandish story to the media.
This revelation is made clear in Three Days of the Condor in a memorable scene by which Turner is standing on a busy New York avenue with Higgins, the deputy director of the CIA’s New York division, performed by Cliff Robertson. After explaining Turner’s grim state of affairs, Turner factors out that they’re subsequent to the New York Occasions constructing, claiming he just lately shared his story with the paper. Nonetheless, the look of triumph on Turner’s face shortly turns to uncertainty after Higgins asks, “How are you aware they’ll print it?” earlier than he disappears right into a crowd and turns into, in Higgins’ phrases, a really lonely man. Three Days of the Condor is obtainable to stream on MGM+.
- Launch Date
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August 1, 1975
- Runtime
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117 Minutes
- Director
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Sydney Pollack
- Writers
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Lorenzo Semple Jr., David Rayfiel
