THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Paramount, 1975) Kino Lorber

The downbeat and gritty political thriller, a main staple of the 1970’s, reached its zenith with Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (1975), an edgy, darkly purposed suspense yarn to shorn 3 days off author, James Grady’s original novel (entitled Six Days of the Condor) but otherwise deliver the goods on every level with a triumvirate of superstars – Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Max Von Sidow – at the helm. Most thrillers of ‘Condor’s ilk involved unearthing some sort of ingrained rogue element in the federal government, operating in the shadows to ensure abject chaos reigned under a heavy cloak of faux respectability for the time-honored institutions, otherwise suspected of some very seedy corruption. Given the puppet show afflicting American politics today, as what we are living through can only be described as ‘faux reality,’ marred by some horrendous obfuscations and omissions from on high, I am not altogether convinced the Hollywood of yore was creating gritty fiction so much as an eerily foreshadowing of the future. ‘Condor’s modus operandi falls squarely in line with the scathingly apocalyptic views regarding our political leaders as in flicks like The Day of the Jackal (1973), The Odessa File (1974), Marathon Man, and, All The President’s Men (both in 1976), The Boys From Brazil (1978), and Winter Kills (1979). Neatly sandwiched within this pantheon, Three Days of the Condor builds upon the innate paranoia of our hero –Joe Turner (code name – Condor) – a brilliant mind put to the test in a no-holds-barred contest of wills in a game he cannot win.  

In reassessing Pollack’s dark masterpiece, it behooves us to reconsider two things: first, this movie bears little earthly resemblance to its source material, and second, unlike Grady’s runaway best seller, the picture was not at all well received by the critics of their day. For Grady, Six Days of the Condor became a delayed cottage industry followed by three sequels: Shadow of the Condor (1978), then, Next Day of the Condor and Last Days of the Condor (both written and published in 2015). The original novel’s plot follows CIA employee, Ronald Malcolm who, not unlike his filmic alter ego, Joe Turner (played by Robert Redford), works in a clandestine operation. The novel is set in D.C., not New York. Ronald/Joe analyze mystery and spy novels for the government. Sneaking out the backway to buy lunch for the staffers, Ronald/Joe returns only a few moments later to discover all his coworkers have been brutally assassinated. Realizing he too is in grave danger, Ronald/Joe contacts CIA headquarters.

Using his code name ‘Condor', Ronald/Joe is informed by his superior, Weatherby (in the novel), Higgins (in the movie, played by Cliff Robertson) he will be brought in from the cold for his own protection. Alas, Ronald/Joe quickly discovers the same rogue element responsible for the hit on the office is now after him. In the novel, Ronald manages to elude both the rogue CIA and its legit apparatus, eager to either capture or kill him. Desperate, and, in need of a safe place to collect his thoughts, Ronald kidnaps paralegal, Wendy Ross (a.k.a. Kathy Hale, played by Faye Dunaway in the movie). Wendy/Kathy is reluctant, at first, but eventually agrees to help Ronald/Joe. The two become lovers and Wendy, in a pivotal chapter in the book, is shot, but survives her ordeal. The book’s plot eventually unearths Ronald’s section was a front for an illegal drug-smuggling operation out of Laos. Inadvertently, one of the supervisors was set to expose the truth, necessitating the entire section’s elimination.

Evidently, Grady’s plot was a little too tame and straight forward for screenwriters, Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel. For although the initial parallels between the novel and the movie remained cornerstones, almost from the outset, Pollack and his team became invested in telling an entirely different story – arguably, more prescient to the times in which the picture was made. Herein, Joe Turner is employed by the American Literary Historical Society in Manhattan – actually, an arm of the CIA. The company examines books, newspapers, and magazines from around the world, comparing them to actual government operations to glean new ideas. Discovering an oddity in a thriller that, despite weak sales, has been translated into many languages around the world, Joe’s query is dismissed outright by his superior, Dr. Lappe (Don McHenry), who even hints Joe should seek employment elsewhere. Joe returns from his daily lunch run to find his co-workers, including Lappe, Joe’s girlfriend, Janice Chong (Tina Chen), Fowler (Michael Miller), Harold (Dino Narizzano), and Mrs. Russell (Helen Stenborg) brutally assassinated. Unlike Joe, the audience is privy to the culprits responsible for this carnage, a rather Teutonic professional assassin named Joubert (Max Von Sydow) and his thug muscle, disguised as a mailman (Hank Garrett).

Horrified, but still possessing the wherewithal to take the gun Russell kept in the top drawer of her desk, Joe uses a public telephone several blocks away to alert Higgins at the CIA headquarters at the World Trade Center. Higgins tells Joe he will be brought in safely by S.W. Wicks (Michael Kane) – an operative he has never met and does not trust. To quell Joe’s concerns, Higgins suggests Wicks bring along a familiar face, Joe’s good friend, Sam Barber (Walter McGinn). It all seems on the level. Except, once summoned into the back alley for their surreptitious meeting, Joe realizes he has been set up. Wicks attempts to assassinate Joe. He has no choice but to murder Sam who is not part of the operation. Joe manages to wound Wicks with Russell’s gun before escaping. Taken to hospital, Wicks fingers Joe as Sam’s murderer while a fake story is planted on the nightly news. With nowhere to turn, Joe encounters Kathy Hale inside a ski shop. Kathy is preparing for a Connecticut getaway with her fiancée (whom we never meet), and is about to get in her Jeep when Joe ambushes her at gunpoint, forcing Kathy to drive him back to her apartment. Powerless to convince Kathy of the legitimacy in his fated tale, Joe binds and gags her inside the bathroom while he hurries to Sam’s apartment to forewarn his widow, Mae (Carlin Glynn) she is in grave danger.

Unable to bring himself to tell her the truth about her husband’s murder, Joe is nevertheless successful at getting Mae to leave her apartment. Joe, however, comes face to face with Joubert, who has pre-estimated Joe’s next move and now, follows him into a crowded elevator. Sensing he is in danger, Joe manages to convince a group of revelers in the lobby he needs their help to break into his locked car, suggesting his keys are inside. Actually, he is using the crowd as a shield so Joubert cannot get off a clear shot and kill him. Returning to Kathy’s apartment, Joe again tries to convince her he is telling the truth. She resists, but steadily begins to believe, if nothing else, Joe believes what he is saying, and, in fact, means her no harm. Feigning to her boyfriend over the phone, her delay in their vacation plans is predicated on an unexpected break down of her car, Kathy and Joe instantly become lovers. The next morning, while Kathy is in the shower, Joe is ambushed inside her apartment by the mailman. Mercifully, Joe kills his attacker. Convinced Joe has been telling her the truth, Kathy invests in helping him.

Faking a job interview with the CIA, Kathy encounters Higgins. Since he does not know her, and Joe does not know him, Kathy fingers Higgins for Joe who kidnaps Higgins at gunpoint to get to the bottom of things. Higgins confides Joubert is a freelance assassin, undertaking special assignments for the CIA. Freed by Joe to go about his business, Higgins now unearths the dead mailman worked for Joubert. Both men are on Wicks’ secret CIA payroll. Realizing how he has jeopardized Kathy’s safety, Joe escorts her to the train depot to rejoin her fiancée in Connecticut. Utilizing his U.S. Army Signal Corps training, Joe taps Joubert’s phone. He also discovers Leonard Atwood (Addison Powell), CIA Deputy Director of Operations, is Joubert’s paymaster. Breaking into Atwood’s home at midnight, Turner confronts him at gunpoint, realizing how his innocuous book report to the CIA was a tip-off about Atwood’s rogue operation to seize Middle Eastern oil fields. Before Joe can unearth anymore details, Joubert arrives. He orders Joe to drop his pistol. Believing he is about to die Joe is startled when Joubert shoots Atwood instead.  It seems the CIA has turned on one of its own, as Atwood was about to become a public embarrassment. Their contract on Atwood cancels out the one Atwood took out on Joe. A rather benevolent Joubert, showing no further malice, now offers to drive Joe back into town, forewarning there truly is no safe place for him. The CIA will eventually take out another hit, possibly with Joubert.

Returning to Manhattan, Turner rendezvous with Higgins near Times Square to disclose all he knows, believing this will buy him some time to remain ‘out there’ without fear of reprisals. Higgins considers Joe’s naïve view of the situation, reasoning when America hits its looming economic crisis, Americans will not care from where their salvation comes. In reply, Turner reveals he has given his full disclosure to The New York Times. Higgins, at first slightly bewildered, surmises the news outlet will not print Joe’s ‘fanciful’ tale. He further promises Joe that from this moment forward, he will never again know a moment’s peace. The movie concludes with a freeze-frame of Joe attempting to get lost in a crowd of Christmas revelers, while nervously looking over his shoulder.

Three Days of the Condor is an exquisitely crafted, low-key thriller. Partly for artistic reasons, but also for budgetary ones (the picture only cost $7.8 million to make), Pollack resists the urge to punctuate his story with a flourish of clever camerawork or even a bombast of underscore. In fact, much of the movie is void of David Grusin’s otherwise bouncy music cues, creating an even more unsettling vacuum of fear and danger lurking around every corner. Redford and Dunaway have genuine romantic chemistry with Dunaway playing her early scenes in abject fear for Kathy’s life, but gradually, giving way to a playful badinage whose deep-seeded passion is prematurely thwarted when Redford’s Joe elects to send Kathy away by train. Max Von Sydow is an admirable villain – his stately deportment and sage-like façade as Joubert, creates a sustained menace, even in scenes in which the character does not appear. Joubert’s modus operandi is never transparent. But it is always omnipotent. Owen Roizman’s stylish cinematography captures the frigid and bleak winter landscape, using a lot of wet pavement in shots to convey the damp, dark vulnerability advancing on Joe and Kathy.

When Three Days of the Condor debuted, critics were not entirely impressed. Even when, ostensibly, a positive review was forthcoming, as in the New York Times’ Vincent Canby, who gave it kudos for acting and directing, he was also quick to denote, the movie was ‘no match for stories in your local newspapers.’ Variety called it a B-movie with an A budget. Critic, John Simon devoted considerably more glib venom to the cause, citing how revisions made to the novel only succeeded in complicating a straight forward story, proving ‘enchantment’ to the ‘disenchanted’ and concluding with smug superiority “…we must be grateful to the CIA. It does what our schools no longer do—engage some people to read books.” If the critics were generally dismissive, audiences were not. The movie was a sizable hit for Paramount, taking in $41,509,797 at the box office. Sydney Pollack launched into his own defensive campaign, suggesting while his liberal slant coincided with that of his star, Bobby Redford, neither had endeavored to do a ‘hatchet job’ on the CIA, but to tell a good and honest story about some of the cloak and dagger that goes on under the radar of everyday operations. Viewed today, the results speak for themselves. Three Days of the Condor is a compelling thriller, meticulously detailed and stylishly executed. After all these years, it holds up spectacularly well, and, in light of everything to have morphed American politics into its freakish sideshow since – for better or worse – there is more fire than smoke here…regrettably, more so.

Kino Lorber releases their own 4K UHD of Three Days of the Condor. A little over a year ago, StudioCanal did as much in a UHD transfer that left many scratching their heads. The color spectrum on the standard Blu-ray easily bested this 4K upgrade, which tilted wildly towards a teal bias, muting reds and oranges, and rendering whites and grays with a tint of blue. But the Paramount standard Blu also had egregiously boosted contrast. This brightened the entire image to a level never intended theatrically, uniformly to weaken black levels and, in a few scenes shot at night, aggravate grain levels to a digitized distraction. The ‘new’ Kino 4K appears to be derived from an entirely different master and restores a more naturalistic color spectrum in 4K (boy, that’s a mouthful). Some additional tinkering with the color shift seems to have been applied somewhere along the way to mitigate the earlier teal/blue bias.  Pavement, buildings, tree trunks, now appear quite natural. And Joe Turner’s ‘blue jeans’ are, again, denim - not teal.  Advancements in overall texture and fine details is immediately apparent. Close-ups reveal a startling amount of detail. There is no hint of DNR, edge enhancement or compression artifacts. Of course, we get Dolby Vision and HDR 10. Kino affords us a DTS 5.1 and 2.0 DTS mono. The movie was theatrically released in mono. Both are of value here, with the 5.1 obviously adding spatial separation. But the 2.0 offers certain surprises along the way and ambiance for this being a mid-70’s flick. Dialogue is crisp and clean and David Grusin’s score gets fleshed out nicely.

Now, for the goodies. The Paramount Blu of yore contained nothing but the movie, so there was really nowhere to go but up. Both the 4K and standard Blu (remastered from the same 4K scan off an original camera negative and also included in this set) contain 2 commentaries – the first, a vintage track featuring the late Sydney Pollack. Aside: God, how I miss this man. What a great director! The second track is brand spankin’ new and involves historians, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. I prefer Pollack, but Mitchell and Thompson have some good, solid reflections to augment your viewing experience. The rest of the extras are housed exclusively on the Blu-ray and include a wonderful, hour-long documentary on Pollack’s career from 2004 and an ‘almost’ half-hour puff piece on the making of this movie from 2003. Finally, we get a few theatrical trailers. Bottom line: while I am decidedly not loving the teal/blue bias of this 4K release, it is not as egregious as some I have seen. I just wish those involved in video mastering would pay a little more attention to the color dials on their digital tools. Three Days of the Condor in 4K improves upon image contrast and clarity. But its color spectrum is decidedly off and that is a shame. The extras assembled here are well worth your coin. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

4