Three Days Of The Condor: classic or dud?

And yeah, jz otm.

this is a good movie

Marathon Man is perhaps the summit of the 70s paranoia genre - Condor isn't as good as that.

Huh? Marathon Man is pretty good but ... Probably the summit of the 70s paranoia genre was All the President's Men. The one with Jon Voight chasing former Nazis was pretty good, too. Ditto Boys from Brazil. One can argue that Chinatown and Serpico also are related to the genre.

Just watched it tonight. Felt a little stilted in places, but definitely enjoyable. And I love all the 70s technology, especially the phone-tracing scene.

Another really fantastic 70s paranoia movie, can't understand the lukewarm.

i watched it last week! the love affair thing always seemed rilly silly though. everyone he knew got blown away the day before! maybe if they had kept the original book title SIX days of the condor it would have been a little more believable. a lot can happen in a week.

poor Max von Sydow, painting his little collection of figurines

nice editing on the fight btwn Redford and the mailman/assassin

Bob telling Faye to look at how the phone # for his literary guild is the same as the NY CIA hq is pretty extreme even for a dumb Hollywood potboiler, but then ppl who are stopped cold by it are what Hitchcock called "the Plausibles."

also another post-Oscar opportunity for John Houseman to sneer and look constipated.

It shares a screenwriter (Batman TV ace Lorenzo Semple Jr) with The Parallax View but this one's much less interested in staying shadowy. Also I guess a forerunner of Sydney Pollack's later The Firm (which the OTHER screenwriter, David Rayfiel, worked on), which i've never seen.

holy shit at the gender politics in this.

but, loved the paranoia thriller stuff, the fights, and especially the telephone work. great looking movie overall.

Joubert: Well, the fact is, what I do is not a bad occupation. Someone is always willing to pay.

Joe Turner: I would find it... tiring.

Joubert: Oh, no - it's quite restful. It's almost peaceful. No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision.

Redford seducing Dunaway by psychoanalysing her photographs is pure dud, but his waking up the deputy director with a FUNK JAM - with on-the-nose lyrics - is classic. Just for contrast I watched recent netflix paranoia thriller Beckett, which moves a lot faster and has a lot more action, and curiously seems a lot longer than the much slower Condor - there's no scene in Beckett where he writes down his theory, the camera lingers on it twice, and then just for good measure he moves his finger slowly along the lines as though he's never seen it before and he's still learning to read. I thought they were just about as engaging as each other, though Beckett does tip over into ridiculousness in the final scene.

The Redford/Dunaway stuff (much of it) is the dud in an otherwise amazing movie.

Turner: I've got a plan. I don't know if it'll work or not, but I'll need your help.
Kathy: Have I ever denied you anything?
Turner: Hey.
Kathy: Well, when things quiet down...you're really a very sweet man to be with. You had bad dreams. Talked in your sleep.
Turner: What did I say?
Kathy: Who's Janice? [no answer] Well, was she a volunteer or a draftee like me?
Turner: She was...a friend. She's dead.
Kathy: Do I have permission to take a shower?
Turner: You don't have to help, you know.
Kathy: No, I'll help. You can always depend on the old spyfucker.

some of those dunaway line deliveries redeemed the silly bits imo

I saw this last night. What a weird film.

It looked really good on one level, especially the scene where Redford is saying goodbye to Dunaway at the train station with all that sweet 70s neon out of focus in the background. The actors are pretty to look at and do a decent job with the material.

On another level, it was incredibly cheap, especially the preposterous and troubling Redford-Dunaway sex scene, which felt grafted on from a trash 90s thriller with Cindy Crawford and a minor Baldwin brother.

The movie had two interesting references/resonances: (1) I never knew the movie was the origin for the Seinfeld scene where Newman tries to warn Kramer that the post office is after him for refusing mail delivery; and (2) Redford's casting in Captain America: Winter Soldier is a obviously a meta-reference to his role in this and other post-Watergate paranoid thrillers.

They sped things up a lot from the sourced book and did everything in half the time.
I remember reading the book after seeing the film and both being in the early 80s but not sure if I'm remembering the whole thing. Beyond somebody going for lunch at a fortuitous time.

I never knew the movie was the origin for the Seinfeld scene where Newman tries to warn Kramer that the post office is after him for refusing mail delivery

Familiar with both, but not sure if I put that together either.

saw this for the first time last night

loved the tension of the main storyline & the way it played out
Redford perfectly cast, naive but arrogantly confident in his own knowledge

Von Sydow absolutely a+ as always

Love how so much of the action happens in total silence, soundtrack-wise. at times felt like a fast-paced Tinker Tailor or British spy thriller.

The Dunaway storyline was a hard no for me though, it just ground the movie to a halt. And so gross to have them fuck after he’s held her hostage, shoehorning it into a “love story” ugh.

Train station goodbye beautifully shot though, v Casablanca with all the smoke etc

Lots of excellent hats & coats
Higgins rocking an a+ toupee lol

agreed completely, loved the hell out of this with the glaring exception of the entire Dunaway plot.

The Dunaway storyline was a hard no for me though, it just ground the movie to a halt. And so gross to have them fuck after he’s held her hostage, shoehorning it into a “love story” ugh

A '70s screenwriter's idea of love.

male, doncha know

felt also like a forced studio thing - we need a hot love interest because it’s Redford & women love Redford etc