When you hear the name Robert Redford, what comes to mind? Now, those born in the late 1980s and beyond will probably think he is some obscure guy who ran for President or even WAS President ( go with me on this one, I have had many a student who thought Martin Luther King Jr was a President as well). To folks in my generation (born 1972-75) know Robert Redford as a pretty fun actor to watch, even when he is trying to play darmatic. Unlike Dick Clark (the guy who explored the Louisiana Territory with a guiy named Mary Weather), Redford let himself age gradually and still retain an air of youth.
Redford's big time was in the late 1960s to about the mid 1980s before Adam Sandler redefined fun. His style was to either smile the pants of off his female audience (which he likely did often) or to look blank and baffled and still get the pants off. Thankfully for his SAG dues, he could also say his lines pretty well.
I like a lot of his films. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Great Gatsby, All the President's Men, , Brubaker, The Natural Legal Eagles, and his sleazy horny millionaire flick An Indecent Proposal. Some duds (in my eyes) were The Way We Were and The Horse Whisperer...but those were due to his female pairings, not Redford himself.
However, there is one movie that stands out a little more to me....and that I didn't list above...and that was adapted from a book (CURSE YOU MOORE, YOU DID IT AGAIN!).
Sneaky bastard, aren't I?
The movie was Three Days of the Condor (1975), where he plays Joe Turner, (codename Condor) a CIA researcher working with other researchers to find plot and character elements in books and magazines and see if the CIA has either used them or could use them. One day when he is out getting lunch for his colleagues, a hit squad led by a cold master assassin named Joubert, played by a stoic Max Von Sydow (and he still shines here in his calmness). Turner tries to get the CIA to bring him in, but corrupt agent Wickes in the Agency intercedes and tries to kill him in an alley. Joe later takes pretty Kathy Hale (played by Faye Dunaway) hostage to find shelter and they eventually have a fairly awkward fling before she helps him to begin unraveling the truth. He meets Agent Higgins (Cliff Robertson) who plays ambiguous good guy well here. You don't know if Higgins wants to help Joe or set him up to see who is behind it all. Using what he knows, Joe learns of Leonard Atwood, Deputy Director of Operaitons for the Middle East and confronts him, learning that one of Joe's submissions was too like a plot to take over oil fiield that Atwood was in charge of, so Atwood had Joe's entire team killed to cover it up. Joubert intercedes and you think he will kill Joe (he tried once previously), but ends up shooting Atwood instead since he was an Agency "embarrassment". Joubert assures Joe that he no longer has a contract to kill Joe, but that Joe is also now an embarrassment, and that the Agency will try to kill him through a friend or trusted associate. In the final scene, you can see that setup in play when Joe meets Higgins in Times Square, but he has already planned for that.
The movie appears to have been quickly adapted from its 1974 parent Six Days of the Condor. I really enjoyed the book, mostly because the print was large enough for these aging eyes and it was only 192 pages.
What baffles me is that aside from a few minor characters, all of the major names were changed for the movie. Joe Turner evolved from Ronald Malcolm, Kathy Hale grew from Wendy Ross, Joubert was originally Maronick, Leonard Atwood was originally Robert Atwood, and there is no direct source evolving into Higgins, though a man named Powell who is working with the liaison group 54/12 comes close.
Aside from names, the plot remains mostly the same except for the story motivation: instead of a book plot about oil being too close to the Agency's plans, it was about 2 missing book boxes that the new accountant couldn't find and he trtagically reported it. The missing boxes (as Maronick explains to Malcolm) contained hard drugs form southeast Asia. Also, Wendy Ross almost immediately (after her initial scare) befriends Malcolm and theyt have sex often. Unfortunately, when she aids Malcom in a game of disguise cat and mouse, Maronick spots her Malcolm when her wig falls off and shoots hewr nearly fatally.
Instead of Malcolm infiltrating Atwood's house, he is ambushed there, then drugged to get the truth out, then taken outside to be killed. However, Maronick on Agency orders kills Malcolm's would be killer and leaves Malcolm to do with Atwood what he likes. Maronick is much colder in the book than Joubert in the movie, and advises Malcolm to stay in research as his luck is running out. Malcolm, seeking revenge for Wendy's shooting, kills Maronick at Washington National Airport.
What is so good about the book is that it was so easily adaptable into a movie. I can understand why the drugs in southeast Asia plot had to change, since Vietnam was a dirty subject when the movie was being made. I am baffled by the name changes. The parts where the 54/12 string pullers were trying to bring in Malcolm or set him up ran a bit long, but Malcolm's parts move fast. I can easily see Redford in the Malcolm role as I read it.
When Bryan, oh when will you spare us these book/movie comparison-reviews?
Not as long as I can keep typing.
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