Only now does it occur to me... THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975)

Only now does it occur to me... that in his paranoid cloak n' dagger thriller THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, Sydney Pollack inserts a small homage to Italian master of horror Dario Argento.

In a scene where Robert Redford's character is skulking around in black leather gloves, gaining entrance to a New York City apartment building,

Pollack has one of the names on the buzzer (while the trademark black leather gloves are in shot) listed as "Argento."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Pollack may have drawn some inspiration from our man Dario, I will also add that THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR exerted some discernible influence on another Junta Juleil fave: John Carpenter. In addition to featuring three actors who would go on to work for Carpy––Cliff Robertson (ESCAPE FROM L.A.), John Houseman (THE FOG), and Robert Phalen (HALLOWEEN, STARMAN)––the film's central dynamic, between bookish, on-the-run CIA analyst Robert Redford and his cool, formidable hostage Faye Dunaway,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

strongly resembles the tense back and forth between hapless hostage-taker Roddy Piper and his icy-calm ward Meg Foster ("If I don't see what you see, I'm going to see it anyway") from a quite similar scenario in THEY LIVE.

Coming up next: an in-depth review of an Argento flick I haven't yet tackled on this site!