Review of Three Days of the Condor (1975) by Lucy P — 09 May 2009

Thirty-odd years after its release, this movie still scared the hell out of me, more than *The Exorcist*! Not because I'm completely naive, and not because I wasn't aware of the subject matter before I watched it.

.. but because, like *Network* or a few other political gems of the 70s, its presience is absolutely uncanny. Michael Moore was probably in elementary school when this movie was released. Secret governments, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is up to, global conspiracies, peak oil, police state surveillance-- nothing we haven't heard of, but damn, if these Hollywood filmmakers were aware of this stuff three decades ago, what's in store thirty years from now??? Strictly in terms of filmmaking, it's bloody suspenseful and horrifically unneverving-- it's got flaws to be sure, but they are so outweighed by the overtones and ideas involved, it doesn't matter.

The late Hoosier Sydney Pollack builds the suspense masterfully. Faye Dunaway is lovely as always, although one has to wonder about a woman who happily goes to bed with a man a few hours after he's been holding her at gunpoint and spouting what sound like insane schizoid delusions.

Of course, he *was* Robert Redford, not Wallace Beery or Dick Cheney... and this was the 70s! I might be able to buy it, a little bit anyway, and the love scene is like the slow ascent of a rollercoaster right up until you reach the top-- and descend 80 degrees downward back at 100 miles an hour to the chilling semi-conclusion, which is about as scary as the rest of the movie put together.