Thee Days of the Condor has been much on our minds lately, what with its eyebrow-raising inclusion on our “Sight and Sound Ten Greatest Films of All Time” ballot, and the related decision to include the movie in our Seventies Film class this summer at Cornell’s Adult University. (A pleasant surprise, which derived from Keith Richards’ admonition that mixing up the set list keeps the band fresh.) Eventually we’ll have much more to say about Condor, which I am eager to do (at one point I more than flirted with one publisher about a book-length study of the picture). But for the moment, herewith a narrower reflection, inspired by an epiphany that visited while prepping for CAU: wow, the final sequences of Condor really soar.
Given a focus on the film’s final two reels, I’m not going to summarize the plot, or take a deep dive into the entire Alfred-Hitchcock-would-have-been-proud-to-make-this masterpiece. (Just go and watch it, jeez). Instead, on offer is a walk through those remarkable twenty minutes. These four (plus) outstanding scenes, are, individually and collectively, exemplars of everything that the seventies film aspired to be. And such things don’t just happen. This series of summary encounters were exceptionally well crafted by screenwriters Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel, and superbly orchestrated by director Sydney Pollack, who (along with his star player and oft-collaborator Robert Redford), also had a strong hand in shaping the content of the material. Notably, none of these crucial, nail-the-ending elements of the story are present in the rather pedestrian source material. And the performances are so good – by Redford, Max von Sydow, Faye Dunaway and John Houseman in particular (that’s no knock against the very fine Cliff Robertson) – that it is easy to forget they are acting.
Scene: Joe and Kathy. Three Days of the Condor signals the turn toward its conclusion with an expressionistic, quiet exchange at the Hoboken railway terminal between Joe and Kathy. Condor can be criticized for having elements of artifice associated with an Old Hollywood movie, but note that our star-crossed lovers will not end up together—nor have their own intense, internal psychological struggles been resolved. And perhaps less noticeable, and more subversive still, is that this tender scene, with the three that follow, place the markers of the film’s philosophical purpose. As Pollack noted in interviews at the time, Joe Turner starts the film as a man explicitly defined as someone who “actually trusts a few people,” but by the end, if only for a moment, he doubts his lover (“do you understand what I am saying?” “Are you going straight to Vermont?”)—one who has risked everything on his behalf.
Scene: Wabash and Higgins. The action (such as it is) then shifts to CIA Headquarters, and a conversation the meaning of which is almost impossible to grasp on a first viewing (actually for me, it took at least three). The key, cryptic line “He’s being held at New York Center,” can slip by without notice. Who is being held at New York Center? Spoiler alert: the assassin Joubert (von Sydow). Why is he being held there? That is the unspoken subtext of the somber, circuitous repartee between Director (Houseman) and mid-level company man (Robertson). “Why aren’t you further along Mr. Higgins?” Wabash asks, as, with world weary precision, he guides Higgins towards career advancement, by dispatching Joubert to murder one of their own—a top man at the CIA. “There’s nothing in the way of your doing this, is there?” the head man pointedly queries, of the repugnant but deemed-necessary assignment with which The Company must not be associated. Apparently not. We won’t repeat the best line in this scene (you probably know it by heart)—but it summarizes the seventies film.
Scene: An expository interregnum. I said four scenes, but really there’s five. And there’s nothing wrong with this one – in fact it’s quite good, as Condor finally confronts the man whose network he inadvertently exposed, Deputy Director Leonard Atwood – but ultimately its main purpose is to serve as an expository bridge, well placed to tie up the remaining loose ends of the plot. And Joubert, with his unexpected appearance, remains marvelous; as always, he virtually speaks in soliloquies (“I don’t interest myself in why, I think more often in terms of when, sometimes where, always how much,” are among his many great lines here).
Scene: Joubert and Condor. The Atwood interlude leads directly to the greatest passage in this great movie, as Joubert and Condor step outside the scene of that final crime. At one (or two) points in the narrative Joubert intended to kill Condor; now he offers wisdom to a man he admires and respects. In the novel, Joubert is a one-dimensional villain, without nuance or redeeming feature. Yet he is perhaps the film’s most complex and charismatic character. As Pollack explained, “we began to construct a man whose amorality was more solvent than the CIA morality.” Of New York City, Joubert explains to Turner, “you have not much future there,” and with more poetry than prose, describes the fate that awaits him there, in his monologue that begins “It would happen this way.” Much like Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane, rarely does a month go by where I have not thought of this scene.
Scene: Higgins and Condor. Back in New York, Joubert’s prophesy is fulfilled, but Condor, armed with that knowledge (and a loaded gun in “one of his pockets”) is a step ahead of the game. But there is no easy victory on hand. Higgins is given space to express his views, and forcefully, not in caricature (indeed my father thought the speech too strong and was upset that Turner doesn’t have a compelling response). And Condor’s brilliant, final play—does it really work? It’s the seventies film out there. Will they print it? We can’t know for sure. You tell me. Condor walks away, and in the last shot of the film, he looks back over his shoulder.
