“I’m not a field agent, I just read books!” As directed by Sydney Pollack and starring his long-time collaborator Robert Redford (the two did seven films together), Condor is a fine piece of mid-70’s paranoia. A bookish CIA officer operating out of the New York-based “American Literary Historical Society,” Joe Turner’s job is to read lots and make connections. He goes out to pick up sandwiches for his co-workers, comes back to find everyone blown away, goes on the run, hijacks Faye Dunaway and the pair have soft-lit 70’s sex. Max von Sydow tries to kill him, but he’s too old. It’s all very 70’s, as evidenced by the jazz-funk stylings of the title sequence. Which makes sense, for between this, The Parallax View, All the President’s Men, and The Conversation, that decade almost perfected the paranoid thriller genre.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/PBZf7vifXmY]