Three Days of the Condor ★★★½ 

OVER a 17-year period the late Sydney Pollack gave us 10 very good films.

Starting with The Swimmer in 1968 and ending with Out of Africa in 1895 that’s a hell of a run.

You can look up the full list but let’s concentrate on one that gets a little overlooked, the 1975 spy thriller Three Days of the Condor.

This was a big release in its original run because the leads were played by two mega-stars, Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.

Both are good, particularly the often under-rated Redford,, but it’s the entertaining story, based on a novel by James Grady, and the taut direction and editing that truly make the film.

The Vietnam War and Watergate political scandal tested the trust of Americans in some of their fundamental beliefs and institutions and Three Days of the Condor’s release timing was right in the thick of this seismic shift.

Redford plays Joe Turner, a CIA analyst working in one of the agency’s secretive New York offices. The American Literary Historical Society is a typical brownstone that houses seven agents.

Turner’s job is to analyse books, newspapers and magazines from around the world looking for potential links to foreign spy operations or even just ideas to aid American ones.

He is waiting to hear from head office on a report he filed on a thriller novel that aroused suspicion.

It’s Turner’s turn to pick up the lunch orders but while he is out a group of assassins kill everyone remaining in the building.

While Turner isn’t a field agent – he barely knows how to fire a gun – he is smart enough not to blindly trust the people on phone calls claiming to be his bosses.

His concern is heightened by an incident that forces him to take a passer-by, played by Dunaway, hostage and hide out in her apartment.

Initially scared and wary, Kathy Hale eventually helps Turner try to uncover what is going on and who he can trust.

The relationship between Turner and Hale isn’t well developed but doesn’t distract too much from the main story due to the charisma of the leads.

Best of all, however, is Max von Sydow as the ruthless Joubert who epitomises the shifting, arbitrary alliances and total indifference to the impacts of violent acts that are viewed simply as the required means to an end.

It’s not the best ‘70s thriller, but well worth a watch.

Watched on Apple