MovieChat Forums > Three Days of the Condor (1975) Discussion > Good movie but a couple of nitpicks

Good movie but a couple of nitpicks


Saw this for the first time and enjoyed it. One thing I didn't think suited it was the music. It's a 70's film and understandably the music is very much of that era but the tone of it didn't seem right to me. At the beginning the music accompanying sounds too lighthearted as if it could almost be some daytime TV cop drama like Colombo or something, not a more serious thriller with a bunch of murders in it.

Another thing was Redford's reaction when he comes into his work building and sees all his friends and colleagues murdered. I didn't feel he really sold being shocked and fear-stricken by it all. It was more akin to reacting like everybody had vanished rather than been shot dead in the few minutes he popped out. Aside from that I liked his performance.

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It took me out, too. The music by itself it's great (it's on Spotify, btw), it just didn't fit the serious tone. It was clearly inspired by blaxplotation movies that were popular then.

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SPOILERS

The opening music indeed had that "70's funk" going on -- a bit post-Shaft, pre-disco.

But as the movie goes on, the music shifts more a low key jazz tempo...and also becomes and stays quite melancholy, making sure that we understand, once the adventure is over for Redford...things are not are that good for him. Dunaway, Von Sydow, Robertson...ALL of them pretty much tell Redford that "there is no future for you." Might get killed.

70's paranoia..reinforced by the sad, melancholy score at the END.

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