Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 38
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 5
This post-Watergate thriller captures the paranoid tenor of the times, thanks to Syndey Pollock's taut direction and excellent performances from Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 2
This post-Watergate thriller captures the paranoid tenor of the times, thanks to Syndey Pollock's taut direction and excellent performances from Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 10,546
My Rating
Movie Info
"His code name is Condor. In the next 24 hours, everyone he trusts will try to kill him." As the ads ominously announced, a low-level spook confronts the unfathomable in Sydney Pollack's 1975 political thriller, adapted from the James Grady novel Six Days of the Condor. CIA researcher Joe Turner (Robert Redford) returns from lunch to find the entire staff of his small New York office assassinated. When he meets his boss (Cliff Robertson) at another location to tell him what happened, someone
Jan 1, 1975 Wide
Aug 17, 1999
Paramount Home Video
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Robert Redford
Joe Turner -
Faye Dunaway
Kathy Hale -
Cliff Robertson
Higgins -
Max von Sydow
Joubert -
John Houseman
Wabash -
Carlin Glynn
Mae Barber -
Addison Powell
Atwood -
Mike Kane
Wicks -
Walter McGinn
Sam Barber -
Tina Chen
Janice -
John P. Connell
TV Reporter -
Ed Crowley
Ordinance Man -
Jay Devlin
Tall Thin Man -
Dorothi Fox
Nurse -
Arthur French
Messenger -
Hank Garrett
Mailman -
Carol Gustafson
Landlady -
Ernest Harden Jr.
Teenager -
John Randolph Jones
Beefy Man -
James Keane
Store Clerk -
Don McHenry
Dr.Lappe -
Dino Narizzano
Harold -
Myron Natwick
Civilian -
Jess Osuna
The Major -
Robert Phalen
Newberry -
Michael Prince
Civilian -
Hansford Rowe
Jennings -
Ed Setrakian
Customer -
Helen Stenborg
Mrs. Russell -
Marian Swan
Nurse -
Patrick Gorman
Martin -
Lee Steele
Heidegger -
Norman Bush
Police Lieutenant -
Robert Dahdah
Santa Claus -
Michael B. Miller
Fowler -
David Allen
Kid -
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All Critics (40) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (37) | Rotten (6) | DVD (20)
Basically a B, it has been elevated in form -- but not in substance -- via four bigger names, location shooting and more production values. Sometimes the trick works, but not here.
Top CriticBasically, the film is a throwback to the 60s anti-Bond spy thriller (a la The Ipcress File), except here the genre's annihilating irony has been replaced by Pollack's liberal piousness.
The action rarely falters, and at its best the film offers an intriguing slice of neo-Hitchcock.
Three Days of the Condor is a well-made thriller, tense and involving, and the scary thing, in these months after Watergate, is that it's all too believable.
At its best moments, Three Days of the Condor creates without effort or editorializing that sense of isolation -- that far remove from reality -- within which super-government agencies can operate with such heedless immunity.
It's noticeably dated at times, but seeing Robert Redford's untrained bookworm trying to stay ahead of Max Von Sydow's cold professional often makes for gripping viewing.
A careful work of adjustment and prophecy
remains entertaining and continues to hold up over the years
If the story had stuck to its guns as a political thriller, it would have been fantastic. However, the sideline story of a codependent lover made things screech to a halt.
Has a dose of camp that might not have been intended 30 years ago
It's easy to see how and why Condor inspired so many of the conspiracy thrillers that came after it.
The only extra on the disc is the movie trailer.
Makes you wish the makers - and especially the funders - of today's overblown big budget thrillers could be made to learn from some of the finer thrillers of the 1970s.
for complete nonsense, it's really quite entertaining
Pollack excels by establishing an interesting situation, sustaining it, and--in keeping with the paranoid-thriller genre--resolving it on a pleasingly ambiguous note. [Blu-ray]
Pollack did nothing new in Condor, but he did fashion a taut thriller that if anything may seem trite these days from imitation and overuse. (Blu-ray Edition)
The film still makes a dandy suspense yarn, with plenty of twists and turns.
It's got the mystery aspect down beautifully, but because I wasn't given a chance to get behind the characters and get to know them, I had a hard time getting into the film itself.
...an efficient exercise in Watergate-era paranoia.
Exciting but frequently incomprehensible.
At its best this spy thriller is tense, engaging and good fodder for paranoids with conspiracy theory fever.
This taut espionage thriller gained greater plausibility during its shooting when a sudden raft of sensational post-Watergate news items began coming out of Washington regarding illegal wiretaps, surveillance, and killings motivated by [politics].
Audience Reviews for Three Days of the Condor
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Latest News on Three Days of the Condor
October 26, 2011:
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Foreign Titles
- Les Trois jours du Condor (FR)
I found the plot from THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR to be quite intriguing. Admittedly, it is one of those classic examples of a "before it's too late" plot, but this film cuts it well.
Besides the opening twenty minutes or so, the film is just a typical spy film. A man is on the run, undercover, trying to catch the man who killed his friends. We've seen it all before, but it's still fun, and probably worth more than just spy fans seeing.