It is true. Everything old is new again. A major plot point in the 1975 spy thriller Three Days of the Condor has to do with oil. Sound familiar? Robert Redford stars as Joe Turner, a CIA researcher who finds himself on the run when, returning from picking up lunch, finds his colleagues have all been killed. Joe, whose code name is Condor, calls into CIA headquarters for help, but his paranoia starts to grow. Who can he trust? A meeting is set up that ends with Joe’s friend Sam Barber (Walter McGinn) being killed, and gives his superiors the impression that maybe Turner has been turned. Now he knows he can’t really trust his employer either.
This leads him to take a hostage, Kathy (Faye Dunaway), and use her apartment as a safe haven until he figures out what’s going on. Kathy is a photographer whose photos exude a deep melancholy and loneliness. Initially resistant to him and his wild story, Kathy eventually comes around. It must be the fastest case of Stockholm Syndrome ever, for within hours they are lovers. But it is Robert Redford at the height of his Robert Redfordness!
Taking Kathy’s jeep, Turner goes to Barber’s apartment and without explaining anything makes the dead man’s wife go somewhere else to ensure her safety. There he shares an elevator ride with a man (an ominous Max von Sydow) who tries to kill him, but Turner outsmarts him. The assailant, one Joubert by name, does get the license plate number off Kathy’s jeep as Joe escapes. The next day a hitman (Hank Garrett) dressed as a mailman appears at Kathy’s door, worms his way into the apartment, and is killed by Turner.
Turner enlists Kathy to lure CIA bureau chief Higgins (Cliff Robertson) and finds out that Joubert is a paid assassin who sometimes works for the agency. Using a hotel key he found on the hitman/mailman leads him to Washington, D.C. and Leonard Atwood (Dark Shadows alum Addison Powell), CIA Deputy Director of Operations. There in Atwood’s house, Turner holds him at gunpoint and discovers the reason his colleagues were murdered. He is then joined by Joubert, who kills Atwood and makes it look like a suicide. It’s another agency-funded hit for Joubert. Joubert warns Turner he will never be safe, but Joe has another plan. No spoilers here.
Von Sydow almost steals the film with his cool and calm but menacing portrayal of Joubert. Being a hitman is just a job to him, one with no remorse. There’s almost a twinkle in his eye. John Houseman also has a memorable turn as an old school intelligence officer. As for the leads, Redford and Dunaway are first-rate and have real chemistry together. Redford proves why he was a movie star. Dunaway went on to play a photographer again in another ’70s suspenser, 1978’s The Eyes of Laura Mars.
Directed by Sydney Pollack, Three Days of the Condor was part of the wave of post-Watergate conspiracy thrillers (see The Parallax View, Marathon Man, Winter Kills, and more) and really captures the paranoia of always looking over your shoulder, making the viewer uneasy as well. Everyone is a potential enemy. And who can you trust? Fun Fact: The James Grady novel that the film was based on was originally called Six Days of the Condor. Why did Paramount cut the title time in half? Were they afraid audiences would think it was six days long?