James Bond movies are like the demo version of an advertisement for recruiting spies. It is what the employers promise the candidates their life would look like if they become spies. Unlimited budget, magical gadgets, travel around the world – the works, although recent Daniel Craig movies have put a dent in this image, showing Bond encountering glitches in his gadgets and making him more human. Ultimately though, Ian Flaming knew that James Bond is an illusion, the audience knows that James Bond is an illusion and even James Bond knows that he is an illusion.
On the other side are the books and movies of John le Carré that show the spy trade as realistically as possible. No glamour, no long chases or elaborate action sequences involving everything from kickboxing to ju-jitsu, and no magical gadgets. Instead, you have middle aged men with bald heads and glasses who spend most of their time either going through dusty files in poorly lit basements or waiting in cars and undisclosed houses, watching and tailing people. It’s a fairly boring job that involves real danger at times.
Movies of the first type are plentiful. Three Days of the Condor, directed by Sydney Pollock falls under second category. Based on the book Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, the movie stars Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow. The movie was made in 1975 and there are unmistakable similarities with the 1976 classic All The President’s Men, also starring Redford. Both movies start with a shot of typewriter/printer in action, there are many closeups of people writing on pads and making notes, and lot of phone conversations in both movies have the same feel. Whether this was a coincidence or not is anybody’s guess.
Three Days of the Condor features Joe Turner (Robert Redford), code name “Condor” who works for the CIA and analyses books and other printed materials. He goes out one day to buy lunch and comes back to find his whole division murdered. What’s more he becomes a suspect and has to flee. What unfolds is a gruesome tale of greed, betrayal and foolhardiness.
Three Days of the Condor shows the CIA in a matter-of-fact way, where the spies keep a low profile and try to blend in. Even when Turner is in an elevator with Joubert (Max von Sydow), a contract killer, who has come to kill him, there is no fight. Instead, they play a cat-and-mouse game and Turner escapes mixing with a group of students who are loitering in the lobby. There is a lot of violence in the film but hardly any action sequences with the exception of the scene where a killer posing as a mailman tries to shoot Turner. Instead, what we see are clever tricks employed by the spies such as switching to French in the middle of a conversation on street when there is someone passing by.
In the end, Joubert has another confrontation with Turner but this time the previous contract to kill Turner has expired and in accordance to a new contract, he helps Turner make an escape. He even advises him not to return to New York, describing a scenario of how me may get killed if he does. According to Joubert, there are no sides to chose, there is only yourself. This is exactly the dilemma faced by many of the characters in the novels of John le Carré. The complexity of international politics coupled with ambitions of individuals make the life morally ambiguous for a spy. Every day there are decisions to be made about whether means justify the end.
In the end, Turner does take a morally unambiguous route, choosing to do the right thing. The movie does not tell us whether he succeeds in his endeavour or not.
Three Days of the Condor stands out in its portrayal of spycraft as a low profile, tedious job as opposed to a flashy, glamorous one that has become a norm in most spy novels and movies.
I read the novel by James Grady after I saw the movie. Both work well, the novel is detailed in some parts and I wondered why some of it had been left out as it seemed to have good cinematic value. For instance, Redford changes his appearance while on the run. This would have made some great scenes similar to what Harrison Ford does in The Fugitive. The latest edition of the novel also has an introduction by Jame Grady where he describes his background, how he got the idea of the novel, his struggles and the eventual lucky break.
Grady was a senior from University of Montana, who wanted to write fiction more than anything else. He was trained as a journalist and an avid reader of spy novels. He loved the James Bond series but always thought of him as a superhero. He wanted his spy to be human, who can get afraid at times and who can make mistakes. He worked as an intern for Senator Lee Metcalf and every day while going to work he passed a white stucco town-house. It was the headquarters of American Historical Association.
Passing this building everyday, a though began to form in his mind. What if this building is a CIA front? This was the germ of an idea that eventually came out as Six Days of the Condor. He also invented a fictional CIA department that analyses books, looking for plots and new ideas. So successful was his description that the KGB started a new department employing 2000 soviet citizens, doing a job that a novelist from Montana had invented out of thin air.
Getting published was not easy. Grady made the bold decision of leaving his job and surviving solely on writing fiction. He retired to a shack in a blue-collar section of the town and wrote extensively, including a one twelve-plus-hour marathon where he stopped only because his typing fingers began to bleed.
Six Days of the Condor was rejected by the first publisher. The second one, W. W. Norton, responded positively after four months. They would pay $1000 for it. Two weeks later, they called back to say that it has also been sold as a movie script and Grady’s share would be $81,000.
Grady was twenty-four years old. The rest, as they say, is history.
Six Days of the Condor is available for free on a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
