THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR
JOE TURNER is a humble genius who reads and reports on books for the CIA, so why does someone want him dead? The only survivor of a brutal attack on his office, he’s on the run and looking for answers with only his considerable wits and a borrowed .45 for protection. A quintessential ‘70s thriller, Three Days of the Condor was extensively reimagined from James Grady’s novel Six Days of the Condor, and not only in its titular arithmetic.
This fast-paced cinematic adaptation is fraught with the postwatergate paranoia of an increasingly complicated world that could no longer trust the government, its considerable intrigue ably shouldered by screen icon Robert Redford.
But for a few dated trappings, Three Days has aged quite well, exploring the universal theme of human decency and its conflict with ruthless bureaucracy.
The movie was filmed on location in mid-‘70s New York City in winter, which means that there are a lot of greys, benefitting here from strong contrast, and colors are sufficiently pleasing when they crop up, as in the red of a Santa suit in Times Square. Kino Lorber Studio Classics’ master is derived from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, spread across a triple-layer 100GB platter to afford a high bitrate, with crisp results evident in the ample facial details and the precise lines of Turner’s tweed jacket.
HDR highlights during certain evening scenes are respectably bright, although nighttime sequences often appear a little too dark, with mushy blacks. Any image cleanup performed was thankfully restrained, as the inherent film grain is preserved and even a vertical scratch is noticeable in one shot.
The disc defaults to the DTS-HD
Master Audio 2.0 option and switching over to the 5.1 home theater remix opens it up a bit. Pitter-pattering rain and later an approaching helicopter have been cautiously shifted into the rear channels, and Dave Grusin’s jazzy musical score extends gently into the surrounds as well. Nothing too fancy here, as a brief scene set inside a busy telephone control room makes no effort to engage more than the left/right front speakers.
Two audio commentaries are supplied on the 4K disc, one archival track from late director Sydney Pollack and a new one from a pair of experts. These are included on the bundled HD Blu-ray too, which also serves up a couple of lengthy video bonus features culled from a batch of roughly 20-year-old Redford/pollack interviews, excellent and both worth a watch, these in addition to a deeper-thanusual array of trailers.