MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
3 Days Of The Condor (1975, 118 minutes)
The crumbling of Richard Nixon’s presidential empire during 1973-74 helped launch cinema’s golden age of political paranoia. In little more than a decade, “Ask not what you can do for your country” was replaced by the nagging question, “What’s your country been doing to you?”
Joe Turner isn’t a spy. He just happens to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in a New York City office disguised as the American Literary Historical Society. The staff is dedicated to worldwide information-gathering, culling anything found in books, newspapers and periodicals that might be of interest to the nation’s intelligence system. Its employees spend all their time reading and filing reports about anything that seems out of the ordinary.
As usual, Turner (Robert Redford) is late for work. He rides his motorized bike through the streets of Manhattan, breezes into the office and reports in mock military fashion to Edwina at the front desk: “Turner, Joseph, no middle initial!” “You’re 17 minutes late,” she reminds him curtly. “Make it 12, willya? I was bucking a head wind,” he replies. “Dr. Lappe, anything in the early pouch for me?” he inquires of the office’s director. “Nothing in response to your report,” says Lappe (Don McHenry), irritated by Turner’s tardiness and his casual appearance. Turner is wearing Levis with a sports coat and no necktie.
Fingering the foliage of a potted plant, Turner says, “Better move the ptolemais closer to the light, doctor. You’re getting blight on the leaves.” Upstairs, the younger employees, Janice, Ray and Harold, discuss a recent murder where no bullet was found and no exit wound. “Ice instead of lead,” offers Turner, knowingly. “The murderer pours water into a .38 caliber mold, freezes it solid and shoots the guy with the ice bullet. When the cops show up, there’s only a few drops of water and no bullet.” Janice Chon (Tina Chen) gives Turner a kiss on the cheek in his office and asks him, “Where’d you get that thing about the ice? Dashiell Hammett?” Turner replies, “Dick Tracy. He was a very underrated detective.”
It’s Turner’s day to buy lunch for everyone. As rain begins to pelt down, he ducks out the rear exit through the basement and jogs down an alley to a nearby luncheonette. A taciturn man with a mustache and horn-rimmed glasses sits in a car parked opposite the office. He has a list of all seven of its employees and has just run his fountain pen through the name of the last to arrive, Turner. He makes a call from a phone booth and two more men appear. One is dressed as a mailman, and Edwina buzzes him through the front door. Once inside, the trio systematically makes its way through the entire facility and guns down every employee in the office.
