User reviews

Towards the end of this film - two of the main protagonists engage in a conversation that is so telling - it could have been written yesterday and not thirty years ago.

The West has long looked to the east and its oil fields as potential targets and this film just reinforces the fact that what we think of as a new war has in fact been a raging cold war for decades. It is not and never has been about freedom –it is now and always has been a war of economic necessity. Although this film is not as renowned as many of the other paranoid spy thrillers of the 70's such as the Conversation or the Parallax View it is still a very watchable and intriguing film.

Redford is well cast as a fish out of water having to adapt his talents from the page to real life. The central relationship between Dunaway and Redford doesn't work as well as it should. She is too keen to fall for his charms and were it not Redford but a more charmless man like Hackman for example I doubt it would have worked at all.

The film is not as complex as has suggested. It is neat and easy enough to follow. It has a beguiling character that is better for my money than harder hitting films like Parallax. Redfords fight in the middle of the film is copied in a many ways by the new Bourne movie fight scenes. Indeed the double talk spy will appeal to fans of this genre. Bourne today is the nearest thing to Condor in the movies.

And Von Sydow is as always untouchable. Worth a remake but I still have a very dear place in my big movie heart for well made 70s films like this.

Though this movie is 45 years old, the movie still holds up today and just shows that our governments are still fighting over the same things that they were in the mid-70s. Timeless. Beautiful transfer. Brilliant thriller and very fast paced. Catch it on Amazon Prime streaming

I look back at films like "Three Days of Condor" with a nice twinkle in the eyes due to the fact that Hollywood and even world cinema don't make films like this anymore. Where's the excitement in seeing an ordinary guy fighting against the odds facing powerful and dangerous people behind him without being a James Bond or a Jason Bourne type? Where did the intelligent and high standard plots go? And who said that a suspense film must have a haunting score or fast action scenes? Sydney Pollack made a wonderful thriller, with delightful dramatic scenes and an interesting plot that new directors of our recent times would be ashamed of what they're doing with plenty of money but no good script in hands.

And you gotta love when Robert Redford plays someone related to spies and intelligence services, after all he gave us notable and memorable performances not only in this but also in "Sneakers" and "Spy Game", outstanding spy thrillers. Here, he plays a bookish CIA researcher named Joseph Turner, codename 'The Condor', involved in a mysterious and dangerous incident after the murder of all his colleagues. The strange fact is that they only deliver messages to the headquarters, under secret memos, nothing harmful but for some reason the only member of this team who survived is followed by a sinister man (the great Max von Sydow), and also by some of his bosses at CIA (one of them played by Cliff Robertson). Trying to figure out what happened and who is trying to kill him, Turner takes a hostage (Faye Dunaway) that might help him out and also might be a next victim of these people.

Intelligent without being complicated or fuzzy, breathtaking without making the audience feel dizzy with some innovating shaky camera, "Three Days of Condor" might look dated or not much demanding in terms of surprise, but it certainly it's a serious and thrilling experience, with lots of action and effective and well balanced dramatic moments between Dunaway and Redford, and it has many things that lack in today's movies: it makes us feel good and it makes us really scared for the sake of these characters, we can relate to them and to their dangerous moments fighting the bad guys.

The performances are brilliant most notably the villain played by Max von Sydow, working with an efficiency in such a sinister and dark character that gets our attention from the first moment he's on the screen to the very last (and surprising!) scene. My favorite part with him was when he explained why he does what he does, explaining in very reasonable terms for his line of work as sort of a high class mercenary.

Sydney Pollack makes of "Three Days of Condor" a rare great thriller that still can make our hearts beat fast, with enormous qualities in terms of acting, screenplay, direction, cinematography, editing and music, and he only would made a similar interesting work in the also thrilling "The Firm". No wonder that David Rayfiel wrote both films and they were both amazing. We need more of those now! 10/10

Sidney Pollack is a great admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, which he also proved with "The Interpreter". Apparently he loves suspenseful thrillers and I sure hope for him that his movies will age as well as those that Hitchcock made. And I guess they do. Even though it was made thirty years ago, "Three Days of the Condor" still hasn't lost any of its power. Sure, you could call it a typical product of the seventies, but even today this movie feels up-to-date and believable.

Turner works for the American Literary Historical Society, or at least so it seems. In reality he is a CIA researcher, with the code name Condor, who gets paid to read books, in which he has to find possible scenarios that could be used in intelligence work. When he returns to his office after he went out to get lunch, he finds all his colleagues dead and he doesn't know who shot them. He immediately calls a superior who sends his section chief to get him out of there. But when the man arrives, he immediately opens fire on Turner. In an act of pure desperation - he no longer knows who he can trust - Turner kidnaps a woman he has never seen before and forces her to hide him. He will stay in her house until he can find out what exactly is going on. But even there he isn't save. He is discovered and attacked in the woman's house, but is able to kill the man. Now he knows one thing for sure: the man too had a connection to the CIA, which means that someone in the CIA must be behind all this...

I guess the best thing about this movie is the fact that it doesn't give away all its information at once. At first Turner appears to be an ordinary guy who arrives late for work. Nothing special there. But because he gradually builds up tension by slightly releasing more information, the writer knows how to keep you focused and interested. I guess the best way to describe this movie is calling it a classic spy thriller without James Bond-like locations or bad guys and and no super hero who can beat all the bad guys with a blink of an eye. No, this is a normal man who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and who now has to face an unusual and life threatening situation. I guess that's where this movie gets its strength: you can easily identify with him, even though he is a spy.

And yes, the whole concept of the movie is very seventies: the paranoia towards the government, the insecurity of not knowing who your enemies or your friends are... all give it that typical feeling. but even today this movie hasn't lost any of its power or relevance. All in all this is a very good and stylish thriller that offers plenty of tension and some very nice acting. Especially Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway were very nice to watch, but the other actors did a fine job too. Thanks to the combination of the acting, a good story and some nice camera-work, Pollack has created a movie Hitchcock might have been proud of if he had done it. That's why I give this movie a 7.5/10.

I'm sure that Robert Redford thought he had the greatest job in the world in Three Days Of The Condor. He's a reader for the Central Intelligence Agency. His job along with several other associates is to read various books, fiction and non-fiction, in a comfortable old Upper East Side of New York brownstone and glean ideas for the agency.

Except that one fine day an innocuous report gets turned in from his brownstone that panics someone in a high place. A hit team is sent out and Redford by dint of going out for lunch orders through a back entrance misses a massacre. After he calls it in and then escapes another murder attempt in which a friend in the agency is killed, he doesn't know who to trust.

Three Days Of The Condor is a finely tuned spy thriller which will keep you guessing right up to the end. You will be inside Robert Redford's head totally, you won't know what to believe either. Eventually the only one he does trust is a woman whom he forces at gunpoint to help him escape. The woman is Faye Dunaway who goes Stockholm and enlists in helping Redford try and sort things out.

Redford proves to be quite resourceful even winning the admiration of Max Von Sydow, the contract killer hired to get him. After all he's not a field agent, but as Von Sydow points out, 'he does read'.

Sydney Pollack kept things going at a Hitchcock like level of tension with great performances from his cast. That would also include Cliff Robertson as the CIA station chief whose motives are mixed to say the least.

If your taste tends to espionage thrillers, don't miss Three Days Of The Condor.

Good intrigue yarn about a CIA agent whose code name is Condor who is forced to flee for his life when his cover operation (called American Literature History Society) is blown and becomes into man-on-the-run . In the next seventy-two hours almost everyone he trusts will attempt to murder him ( by an organization undercover called Five Continents Import Inc. ). The bookish CIA information reader (Robert Redford) aware more than he should and he finds all of his co-workers cruelly killed. He must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust and he suddenly himself as hunted man , being only helped by a stranger woman (Faye Dunaway) .

This exciting mystery contains thrills , action , shootouts , suspense and is quite entertaining . Good performance from Robert Redford as bookish researcher working for US Intelligence office and Faye Dunaway as the innocent who Condor uses to avoid capture and shelter him . Excellent support cast as Cliff Robertson with special mention to veteran John Houseman and of course Max Von Sydow who expertly handles a vignette as cold murderer . Very good cinematography , well filmed in New York City and Washington D.C. by Owen Roizman- The exorcist- and atmospheric musical score by Dave Grusin. The motion picture is stunningly directed by the recently deceased Sydney Pollack . Sydney was an excellent director , producer and secondary actor with several hits on all kind of genres as ¨The Interpreter¨ , ¨The firm¨ , ¨Out of Africa¨ , ¨Tootsie¨, ¨Yakuza¨ and many others . Rating : Good , better than average and worthwhile watching . The flick will appeal to Robert Redford fans and thriller buffs .

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

This is looking more and more like a period piece, dated and curious like one of those great Cold War films looks today (Failsafe or Seven Days in May). And yet it also feels like the beginnings of spy/counterspy films that are going on today, way beyond the pizazz of the early Bond films of the 1960s, and presaging the dozens since, including recent ones like the Bourne films or Syriana. It plays straight up as a suspense film, one where an almost innocent man is caught up in something huge and perplexing and awful, and we all identify with the individual against the powers of evil. Robert Redford plays the role of Joe Turner well, with the usual Redford stiffness, but believably--he reads books, after all--and sympathetically.

Putting yourself back to 1975 you have to remember that everyone was talking about, and reacting to, Watergate, and a U.S. president who had to resign from office because of it. Watergate, more than anything, started the current public roar (blossoming on the internet) about government conspiracy. Three Days of the Condor makes the government, and the CIA in particular, an almost unassailable and invisible force of spying and mistrust. Turner, by circumstance at first and then by admirable determination, fights back. He's clever as much as he is worried. He falls in love. He feels isolated but never gives up. He has close calls, and lucky escapes, and unlikely friends. He thinks of other people first.

In other words, he's a hero against the machine, and if the movie is sometimes slow, it creates a nice pace for the end, which is beautifully thought out. Director Sydney Pollack is hampered by a screenplay that alternates between awkward (Faye Dunaway's scenes) and brilliant (Redford's anti-spy character has a conversation with a hit man played by Max Von Sydow that shines), but he patches it together with an editing job that was nominated for an Oscar. And the cinematography by Owen Roizman is really nice (he shot a dozen great films from the French Connection to the Exorcist to Network). Condor is not just an entertainment, which is a saving grace, but it does also, slowly and beautifully, entertain.

I don't know what it is about this film that I like so much. Is it the idea of Robert Redford as the everyman, in over his head? Is it the beautiful Faye Dunaway, who is sexy and formidable? Is it Max Von Sydow from all those Bergman films holding forth on how the world is controlled by a small group of people? Then there is the constant pursuit where wits are needed or it's the end. So a previous reviewer talked about Hitchcock. This is a fast pace Hitchcock film. Like Cary Grant and Robert Donat, Robert Redford is only able to survive the overwhelming odds by getting a confederate, a woman, to help him. Redford is continually amazed at how he has left one frying pan to leap into the fire. And in the end, we are given one of those very unsettling statements that floor us. Watch this really cool film to see where all this goes.

"Three Days of the Condor" certainly manages to give a pretty good depiction of cloak and dagger intelligence activity. Robert Redford played Joe Turner, a CIA analyst who finds himself in a desperate situation when he returns to the office from lunch and discovers all of his co-workers murdered and realizes that he must surely be the next target. The movie follows Turner as he tries to put together the pieces and figure out exactly what's happening.

Redford's performance was all right, but in all honesty this wasn't the strongest performance of his career. I frankly thought he was overshadowed by Faye Dunaway, who played Kathy - a woman Turner kidnaps as part of his desperate attempt to escape those out to get him, and with whom he eventually develops a connection - emotionally and sexually. Unfortunately, neither character was particularly believable. Turner - self-described as no spy but rather simply as a guy who reads books, nevertheless seemed to come across as a pretty accomplished cloak and dagger type. The relatively quick development of the relationship between Turner and Kathy detracted from the latter character's credibility, as did her apparently quick and easy entrance into Turner's activity.

This isn't especially an action movie - although it has action moments. It's more of a behind the scenes look at the intelligence community and its ways. It has some mildly effective twists, and a resolution to the mystery of why Turner's colleagues were killed, although the movie ended on a bit of an open ended note, with a great deal of uncertainty about what Turner's ultimate fate would be.

This film was very effective in maintaining the tension not only of the Condor's life and death mission to discover the reasons for the massacre of his colleagues but also the relationship between him and Kathy. The cast is uniformly good though Redford obviously carries the film. Von Sydow is again great as the strictly professional assassin. The entire film had an aura of authenticity that had me entirely engrossed. Recommended, 8/10.

The absurdity of Hollywood's desire for a romp to spice up every movie is on full display in this otherwise passably interesting conspiracy/paranoia vehicle. Man on the run from his own situation takes on a new twist yet it seems that something less than a mass assassination may have sufficed to silence Joe Turner's (Redford) accidental discovery of a disconcerting fact. Nevertheless, without it there would be no film. So on we go with Turner running for his life. Of course he forcibly kidnaps a woman, Kathy, at gunpoint, goes with her to her apartment, ties her up, leaves for a bit, comes back, they have "consensual" sex (Really? Not very likely in the real world, you say? But no matter, this is Hollywood!) and she goes on to aid and abet his escape, which can only be accomplished by Turner exposing the macguffin, presumably ensuring he can't then be liquidated. All the while Turner proves remarkably efficient at spycraft for someone, a bookworm, who is not a spy, dodging assassins, killing one himself, tapping phones and disguising calls. All because "he reads." Whew. It's exhausting. Decent technicals, dark, mid70s NYC vibe and the whole paranoia thing save a dubious plot line.

It's not an espionage movie unless the lead character gets to have sex.

Joseph Turner (Robert Redford) is a book reader for the CIA. He and his office of coworkers spend their days pouring over foreign and domestic writings to find hidden codes/agendas. His entire team gets killed by a few trained assassins while he was literally out for lunch. After that it's all spy business: cloak and dagger, run and shoot, with a brief stop to pick up a vixen/aide. Did I say vixen? I meant a professional woman that was wooed by the seductive agent that was Condor.

That's the mark of a good spy. Even though Joseph aka Condor is not really a spy he's playing a spy game and from my spy movie experience spies have to be able to bed a girl or two; even in the midst of being on the run.

It was an intricate well written movie. In general, I liked it, I just get tired of the spy having sex trope.

The movie is well executed and has a great cast apart from the dodgy kissing scene which was very funny. The plot has enough to keep you entertained throughout. Max von sydow excels as does Robert Redford. The twin towers being in this movie was unmissable and always makes me think of what a iconic symbol they were.

Great film -Robert Redford has a way of drawing in the audience and Faye Dunaway is more vulnerable than ever, her best role since Thomas Crown. No vulgarity in the love scene just a great sensuality. Both stars have shown an outstanding performance ! Top-notch screenplay - 70's films are definitely the best ones in terms of storytelling and screenplays. Sidney Pollack does also a great job as a director and delivers an efficient thriller that you can watch over and over again.I agree with some reviewers who think that it is one of the Redford's best. The supporting cast is also excellent. Maybe the directors nowadays should watch more often 70's films to be more inspired.

The murky world of deceit and deception in the name of national security. Gets a few future forecasts right about what the US would treat the world to in the future - and maybe a few yet to come.

Generally I don't like films directed by Sydney Pollack ("The Firm" being somewhat of an exception) and I've never been a Robert Redford fan either. Still, I thought "Three Days of the Condor" must be good because of the number of praising comments it has received.

Although the widescreen cinematography is quite pleasing for the eye and Max von Sydow does a nice job as the sinister professional killer, I found the whole affair tremendously disappointing. The film undeniably radiates paranoid atmosphere, but everything is ruined by the muddled plot which doesn't seem to make any sense.

The film also contains one of the most unsatisfying endings I have ever seen which really leaves the viewer hanging in the air. And what can one say about that absurd romance between Redford and Dunaway? I'd much rather watch any of Hitchcock's films five times in succession than to sit through this piece of waste once more.