Three Days of the Condor (1975) on Netflix
Joe Turner, codenamed Condor, reads for a CIA office in New York City. He returns from lunch to find his colleagues murdered, and the agency's own people hunting him.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.4/1070,105 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%
Trailer
Plot summary
Joe Turner, who goes by the code name Condor, reads for Section 17, a CIA office in New York City that fronts as the American Literary Historical Society. The section's readers go through everything published around the world, checking whether material has been planted or is being used by intelligence agencies. Back at the office after a trip out to get lunch, he finds the six colleagues who were at work that day executed, among them his girlfriend Janice Chon, and a seventh member killed at his home. Asked to meet Wicks, his department head, he insists that Wicks bring someone he knows, because he has never met the man. An attempt to bring him in goes wrong, and Turner, on the run, forces a woman named Kathy Hale to take him to her apartment.
Cast
- Don McHenryas Dr. Ferdinand Lappe
- Jess Osunaas The Major
Show all 20 cast
- Dino Narizzanoas Harold
- Hansford Roweas Jennings (as Hansford H. Rowe Jr.) (as Hansford Rolle)
- Michael B. Milleras Fowler (as Michael Miller)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to former Soviet intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov, the fictional clandestine office shown in Three Days of Condor convinced KGB generals to establish an equivalent office in Moscow, the Scientific Research Institute of Intelligence Problems.
- The Marvel superhero film Captain America: The Winter Soldier was inspired by this film among other sources, and its directors, the Russo brothers, say that Robert Redford's casting in their film was intended as an homage.
- The film's most famous line is Turner's challenge to Higgins, "You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?" Director Sydney Pollack has admitted to using variations of that line in three of his other films: Tootsie, The Firm and The Interpreter.
- Some critics called the film political propaganda because it arrived soon after the "Family Jewels" scandal exposed CIA "dirty tricks" in December 1974, but Pollack told Jump Cut that it was written solely as a spy thriller and that production was nearly over by then, far too late to take advantage of the revelations.
- In 1997 the Association of Danish Film Directors sued Danmarks Radio on Sydney Pollack's behalf, arguing that cropping the film for television violated his copyright; the case failed because Pollack did not own the film rights, but it is believed to have been the first legal challenge to panning and scanning widescreen films.
- The film's title and theme both escaped into other corners of pop culture: the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick chose the Condor nickname after watching it, and R&B singer Amerie sampled the main theme, "Condor!", for her 2002 song "Why Don't We Fall in Love".
