When Paramount added Three Days of the Condor to their list of upcoming Blu-ray titles it came as something of a "that's out of nowhere" moment, but I guess that is a good thing since it shakes things up a bit and tests the waters to see who is paying attention. The 1975 feature is directed by the late Sydney Pollack and stars Robert Redford as Joe Turner (code name Condor), a CIA agent whose only duties involve reading. Sounds like a hot job eh? This guy, at first glance, is as much a spy as is any bookworm you may know. Of course, his reading is a bit more detailed than trying to find out whodunit at the end of an Agatha Christie novel, but that isn't to say the way the "dunit" was done wouldn't be of interest to him. As he says in the film, "I am not a spy. I just read books. We read everything that's published in the world. And we feed the plots -- dirty tricks, codes -- into a computer, and the computer checks against actual CIA plans and operations. I look for leaks, I look for new ideas... We read adventures and novels and journals." Sound crazy? Well, he agrees and asks, "Who'd invent a job like that?"

Joe ends up on the run after returning from lunch to find his entire division slaughtered as he forms a theory his bosses may be the ones behind it. Redford plays the role as a paranoid and confused man with little skills but an immense amount of knowledge. His attempt to hide quickly finds him kidnapping Kathy (Faye Dunaway), a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, but as far as Joe is concerned she certainly isn't the wrong woman. With a contract killer (Max von Sydow) looking to kill him, and what appears to be an entire intelligence agency against him, Joe uses his intelligence and the fortunate help of Kathy to get the bottom of it all.

Three Days of the Condor is quite good, and it is a paranoia film that once again reminds me of how much more effective films are if seen at the time of their release. The opening paragraph of Roger Ebert's 1975 review proves how a film like this could have been seen as a crazy conspiracy thriller if shown 40 years ago and how audiences today would look at it as just another film about government cover-ups:

"Three Days of the Condor" is a well-made thriller, tense and involving, and the scary thing, in these months after Watergate, is that it's all too believable. Conspiracies involving murder by federal agencies used to be found in obscure publications of the far left. Now they're glossy entertainments starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. How soon we grow used to the most depressing possibilities about our government -- and how soon, too, we commercialize on them. Hollywood stars used to play cowboys and generals. Now they're wiretappers and assassins, or targets.

That paragraph says a lot about movies then and nowadays as well. Upon second viewing I couldn't help but think of the Coen brothers' 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading. If Ebert's statement above has changed at all it would be to say films exploring the most depressing possibilities about our government have gone from "glossy entertainments" featuring stars as wiretappers and assassins, or targets, to films featuring buffoons in high-level positions in our governmental agencies in charge of carrying out the same tasks. Of course, Strangelove took the buffoonery even further 11 years before Condor was ever made, but back then it was more radical than today's passing acceptance of such a feature. The upcoming feature In the Loop takes it even further, albeit with a group of characters perhaps a smidge brighter than Burn After Reading supplied, but that's all in the eye of the beholder.

Condor, however, is as serious as they come; slowly building its story, giving the viewer just enough information at every turn to keep the plot intriguing as the action unfolds. The relationship between Dunaway and Redford is pitch perfect as he plays a wide-eyed, suspicious and scared man on the run while she is a lonely photographer with a bit of neuroses of her own. Should some of the more delicate character traits be missed by the audience Dunaway is given several lines that make up for any confusion and give the audience a few moments of release.

When Joe first tells Kathy he works for the CIA she responds, "Jesus! Your assignment for today was to go out and kidnap a girl?" This is one of the lighter, more tasteful moments. When she says, "You can always depend on the old spy-fucker," is when it really turns it up a notch and her delivery of each line couldn't be better. Her innocence when she says "kidnap a girl" and her jovial delivery of "spy-fucker" changes any opinion you may have had of the character before that point and both for the better.

As for the Paramount Blu-ray, it is an excellent presentation with that 1975 gritty appearance and no noticeable loss of film grain. Occasionally a few scenes are swimming in grain, but the majority of the film looks as it should. The audio track is in Dolby TrueHD, but this isn't a film stressing the speakers so it isn't even fair to really judge. Unfortunately that's all there is to talk about. There are no features outside of the theatrical trailer, which is presented in HD.

Overall, this is a title to own and should you decided to pick it up may I also recommend you hit up Universal's just released Blu-ray edition of Spy Game as a nice modern companion piece. You can check both titles out right here.