Three Days of the Condor

My friend Mark offered me up a suggestion to watch "Three Days of the Condor" starring Robert Redford. This is an old movie, one by Dino DeLaurentis. It came out in 1975. Here we are 35 years later, and it speaks to us today. I would recommend you rent this movie and see it again, or see it for the first time if you have never seen it. It is really quite good.
*****
This movie is a spy movie. Joe (Robert Redford) stumbles upon a secret that the the CIA does not want to get out. There is an order put out to murder everyone in the office where Joe works.
By a sheer stroke of luck, Joe escapes, and returns to find out that all of his friends are dead.
*****
Joe is no field agent. Joe is a reader. Joe reads everything; comic books, novels, everything, looking for clues that might be hidden in the things he reads. The clues are then written down, and a computer takes the clues and analyzes them. Sometimes this leads to a theory about what is happening in the world.
*****
Joe also reads people and situatons. He is very good at it. He stumbles upon Cathy (Fay Dunaway) and overhears enough to figure that this attractive young woman might be living alone. He kidnaps her at gunpoint, and forces her to take her to her apartment. This was a smart move - he needed a place to go, chosen completely at random. where the people looking to find him and kill him would not know where to look.
*****
Joe overhears a phone conversation that Cathy has with her boyfriend. He again reads her from that, and decides that Cathy is involved with a man that she does not love. Cathy is a photographer, and her place has pictures she has taken on the walls. They are empty things, photos of New York taken probably in November. There are no leaves on any of the trees. He begins to read Cathy from her photos. He decides that she is actually a fragile thing, very private. A romance begins between Joe and Cathy. She begins to trust Joe, even though there is no reason for her to do so. She tries to help him survive his three days out in the Cold.
*****
This movie, which is about the CIA toppling foreign governments in order to secure the oilfields for America, must have been a movie that George W. must have watched with his Dad.
*****
The professional assassin, played my Max von Sydow, sees his job as uncomplicated, peaceful actually. For him, his job was all about precision. For him, there is no right side or wrong side. For him there is only the side that pays.
****
The Max von Sydow character. along with the "cleaning crew" became the standard for a couple of films which came later. The two best ones that come to mind are "Le Femme Nikita" and "The Professional".

Mr. Charming