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Three Days of the Condor (1975)

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From Time Out Film Guide

Set in the world of CIA power games and scientific hardware, but dominated by an intriguing Borges-like riddle: why should a mystery thriller that didn't sell be translated into obscure languages? And why should the American Literary Historical Society in New York be massacred while one of their readers (Redford) is out getting lunch? With the telephone his only method of contact with Olympian and untrustworthy superiors, Redford becomes lost, unpredictable, even sentimental. He holes up in Dunaway's apartment and starts making mistakes. Thanks to an intelligent script, partly by Lorenzo Semple Jr (Pretty Poison, The Parallax View), the action rarely falters, and at its best the film offers an intriguing slice of neo-Hitchcock. A certain gloss irritates, but enough scenes compensate for the chic portrayal of the Redford/ Dunaway relationship: Redford's sudden intrusion into civilisation when he visits a dead man's apartment, and finds the wife preparing her husband's dinner; the postman whose pen won't work; Redford in the strange, darkened house of his quarry, taking the initiative by blaring soul music from the hi-fi.

Author: CPe

Time Out Film Guide

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jul 21 2008 14:48 cia @RED CHILLI PEPPERS
Well all the cospiracY theories seem to initiate from this movie which is rather at times a clumsy musical chairs between Redford and CIA ,as they keep chasing ,jilting and evading each other but everone survives including the assasin ,
Ahead of times?maybe or more likely to be commonsense as oil makes the world literally go Around ,
Well Dunaway spends half the movie in the loo and Redford on the phone as they had no cellulars then ,
But POLLACK has style and rescues the rather expressionless Redford from making a dumb fool of himself like in the snooze epic LION FOR LAMBS .
Redford does have a penchant for political conscience and here he drags NYT into it too-watch the movie .
Anyway next time you go for A lunch break make sure you take the fire exit and not the front door -that was a lesson i learnt from the condor .
And do they eat condors for lunch in new york ,only redford can tell us for sure as for the movie it is a sound fun thriller with political overtones and mild violence if you consider a turkey shoot at lunchtime by condors moderately disturbing .
I do feel compelled to say that Saddam missed out on this flick or the world history might be different as the saying goes -forewarned better than forearmed ,but it's too late now and the condors have flown away .

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