Three Days of the Condor

Three Days of the Condor

Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack continued their longtime collaboration (the actor and director have worked together on Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Electric Horseman, and Out of Africa, among other films) with this taut spy drama. Redford plays a reader for U.S. intelligence who becomes a hunted man after he is not among the victims of a mass murder of his colleagues. Faye Dunaway does solid work as the frightened and mystified woman whom he forces to conceal him, and Max von Sydow is appropriately cool as a professional assassin. That same, sustained tone of danger and expectation that made Pollack's The Firm so much fun can be found in this 1975 thriller, albeit with an appropriate dose of post-Watergate paranoia. --Tom Keogh

Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Production: Paramount Home Video
  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 5 wins & 3 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Metacritic:
63
Rotten Tomatoes:
86%
R
Year:
1975
117
6,211 Views
His code name is Condor. In the next seventy-two hours, everyone he trusts will target him for death.
The CIA knows him as Condor. What he knows about them has just made him a very endangered species.

Turner:
Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?

Higgins:
Are you crazy?

Turner:
Am I?

Higgins:
Look, Turner…

Turner:
Do we have plans?

Higgins:
No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That's what we're paid to do.

Turner:
So Atwood just took the games too seriously. He was really going to do it, wasn't he?

Higgins:
A renegade operation. Atwood knew 54/12 would never authorize it, not with the heat on the company.

Turner:
What if there hadn't been any heat? Suppose I hadn't stumbled on their plan?

Higgins:
Different ballgame. Fact is, there was nothing wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was all right, the plan would've worked.

Turner:
Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?

Higgins:
No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?

Turner:
Ask them.

Higgins:
Not now — then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!

Turner:
Boy, have you found a home. There were seven people killed, Higgins.

Higgins:
The company didn't order it.

Turner:
Atwood did. Atwood did. And who the hell is Atwood? He's you. He's all you guys. Seven people killed, and you play f***ing games!

Higgins:
Right. And the other side does, too. That's why we can't let you stay outside.

Turner:
Somebody or something is rotten in the company.

Higgins:
You never complained till yesterday.

Turner:
You didn't start killing my friends till yesterday.

Higgins:
[about Kathy] Who's she?

Turner:
Who hit the Lit Society?

Higgins:
We had a big meeting about that. Your name came up.

Turner:
Five Continents Imports. Ring a bell?

Higgins:
Where'd you get that?

Turner:
The mailman.

Higgins:
Mailman?

Turner:
The one you sent. With the uniform, pouch, automatic gun.

Higgins:
We never use mailmen.

Turner:
Are you also familiar with a tall gentleman, 6' 4", blonde hair, strong like a farmer, not American, has an accent. Country. Towards Germany, maybe Alsace-Lorraine.

Higgins:
I want to see that report, Turner.

Turner:
No, no.. Higgins. C'mon! ..Do you know him?

Higgins:
Professionally, yes.

Turner:
Professionally, he kills people.

Higgins:
Yes. Yes.

Turner:
He works for the company?

Higgins:
He did once. He's a contract agent.

Turner:
Contract agent.

Higgins:
Freelance. Where did you see him?

Turner:
Uh-uh.

Higgins:
It would help if I knew.

Turner:
Who would it help? Who'd hire him now?

Higgins:
Anybody.

Turner:
Terrific answer.

Higgins:
I wouldn't accept it, either.

Turner:
What's his name?

Higgins:
When I knew him, Joubert.

Turner:
Come on, Higgins. Who'd hire him? You don't look up Joubert in the yellow pages.

Higgins:
That's right. It'd have to be somebody in the community.

Turner:
Community?

Higgins:
Intelligence field.

Turner:
Community! Jesus, you guys are kind to yourselves. Community.

Higgins:
I want to see that report, Turner.

Turner:
That report was sent to headquarters and disappeared.

Higgins:
Who read it?

Turner:
You mean besides Wicks? You tell me. I pick up traces of what I think's an intelligence network the company doesn't know about, and I report it. Now, why is that going to make anybody mad, Higgins? Unless it was the company's network and you didn't want it blown, not even to your own guys. Unless somebody is lying. Come on. Why is everybody so shy?

Higgins:
I'm not shy. I don't know. That's what worries me. I don't know.

Turner:
Ask Wicks.

Higgins:
Wicks died. Someone yanked him off the life support system at Guvenor Hospital.

Turner:
Get me in, Higgins.

Higgins:
What good would that do if you're right, and they are inside? What good would it do to bring you in?

Turner:
What am I supposed to do?

Higgins:
I'm sorry.

Turner:
You're sorry? You're sorry. Oh, I get it. I get it. You expect me to draw fire, like one of those penny arcade bears that parades back and forth waiting for somebody, somebody very good just to take another shot, and you're just gonna hang around and pick him up before he does it? Or just after?

Higgins:
I'll try and find out what's going on; I'm gonna cross-check all those names...

Turner:
Nice talking to you, Higgins.

Higgins:
Now wait a minute.

Turner:
Have a nice day.

Higgins:
Where will I find you?

Turner:
I'll find you.


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