Pass the Popcorn: Movies from where I Sit

Faye Dunaway is not my cup of tea.  She's too brittle and mannered an actress for me, and often too much a fashion plate instead of a warm human being.  But those qualities work for her pretty well in "Three Days of the Condor", a 1975 film directed by Sydney Pollack.  An adaptation of a best seller, this fast paced thriller has romance, danger and political relevance, today as well as at the time of it's making.  Robert Redford is a CIA agent who is basically a researcher a la Jack Ryan in the Clancy movies.  Like "Pelican Brief", some obscure research he's been looking into disturbs someone pretty important, and when he comes back to work from lunch, the whole office has been murdered.  He runs for his life, while trying to reach someone who can help him, but those people become the enemy as well.  He carjacks Faye Dunaway's car and forces her to let him hide in her basement flat.   She plays a lonely photographer who is lost and wanting to be swept up and he's just the man to do it.  With character actors like Cliff Robertson, Max Von Sydow and John Houseman, the dialogue is crisp and realistic.  Redford is at his gorgeous best, and his chemstry works with Dunaway.  This movie is like layers of onion peeled in shocking fashion.  At the end, you feel stunned, and the significance of this movie explodes.  It's a fun ride.