Over the last two evenings, I have enjoyed watching two of my favourite 'thriller' films, each for the third or fourth time. Three Days of the Condor was first shown in 1975, whilst The Firm came out in 1993. Both stories originated in book form.
W. W. Norton first edition - 1974 Knopf Doubleday first edition - 1991
James Grady's novel was a suspense thriller set in contemporary Washington D.C. and was, in many respects, quite different from the later film. The start is similar - a CIA employee, Ronald Malcolm, working in a clandestine operations office studies the plots of spy and mystery novels. While out to lunch, a group of armed men enter the office and kill everyone working there. Malcolm returns to the devastation, realises he is in danger and contacts the CIA H.Q. He is told to meet an agent named Weatherby, who will 'bring him in'. In fact, Weatherby is part of the rogue group in the CIA, responsible for the killings. Malcolm manages to escape; hooks up with a paralegal named Wendy Ross; she is then seriously wounded by the group but survives. Why the killings? The rogue group was using Malcolm's section to import illegal drugs from Laos. A supervisor finds out about them, so the section had to be eliminated!
The 1975 Film directed by Sydney Pollack
Only a year later, the film was launched, minus three days! It was again partly set in Washington D.C. but mainly in New York City. Ronald Malcolm has become Joe Turner, played by Robert Redford. He is a bookish CIA researcher, code named Condor. He, too, returns from lunch (this time getting it for the others) to find all his colleagues dead. He, too, contacts the CIA (it was eerie to see the Twin Towers in all their imposing glory) in New York and narrowly escapes a similar set-up to kill him. Kathy Hale (aka Wendy Ross), played by Faye Dunaway, not only provides (at first, unwilling) cover but bed-time together, and then helps him to build up evidence against a CIA rogue operation to seize Middle Eastern Oil fields. Much of the suspense is provided by the (very recently) late lamented Max von Sydow, who led the operation to massacre Turner's co-workers, and who is now after Turner himself. I won't reveal anymore, but add a few comments about the film's quality. Much of this is down to the believable acting by Redford, Dunaway and von Sydow, ably supported by Cliff Robertson (as the Deputy Director of the CIA's New York Division), and Addison Powell as Leonard Atwood (who had ordered the original wipe-out). Criticised as being political propaganda, both Pollack and Redford denied it and said they simply wanted to make an espionage thriller as neither had previously explored the genre. They have succeeded with me, as I have enjoyed each re-watching and will probably do so again.
The Firm was John Grisham's second book and soon sold well over a million copies. Mitch McDeere is a graduate of West Kentucky University and graduated third in his class at Harvard Law School. He is married to his sweetheart, Abby, who is an elementary school teacher. His older brother Ray is in prison for manslaughter in Tennessee. Mitch signs with a small law firm in Memphis, Bendini, Lambert and Locke which specialises in tax law. Two lawyers die in a scuba diving accident in the Caymans just before he starts at the firm. Then he sees plaques commemorating three other deceased attorneys. Suspicious, he hires a private investigator, Eddie Lomax, an ex-cellmate of Ray, to investigate the deaths. They all died in strange accidents. Then Lomax himself is murdered. In come the FBI - agent Wayne Tarrance tells Mitch they are watching the firm. Later he is told it is a white collar front for the Morolto crime family in Chicago. Money laundering accounts for 75% of the business. The makings of a great film!
The 1993 Film directed by Sydney Pollack
I found it interesting that, once again, the Director was Sydney Pollack. The film was released on 30 June 1993 and was a great commercial success - it grossed $270.2 million against a budget of $42 million. This was not only down to a great story (helped by Grisham's high profile - in fact, he was involved in its making), but to a strong cast who delivered the goods. Whatever one might think of Tom Cruise's involvement with the Church of Scientology, he is a good actor. He and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as his wife Abigail, get caught up in the crooked machinations of The Firm and, on the way, get terrific support from other well-acted personnel - Holly Hunter as Tammy; Ed Harris as Agent Wayne Tarrance; Jerry Hardin as Royce; David Strathairn as Ray McDeere; Hal Holbrook as Oliver Lambert, senior partner at the Firm; and the well-cast Wilford Brimley and Tobin Bell as the Firm's main hitman and his albino sidekick. Then there is that never less-than-good actor Gene Hackman as Avery, Mitch's mentor at the Firm.
The story is complicated but tightly told, with specific suspense points along the way. I am now used to Cruise's running ability (speeded-up probably) and it was disappointing, but not surprising, that the deal with Paramount was that only his name could appear above the title. Gene Hackman also wanted this, but when it was refused he demanded his name be completely removed from the posters! He joined the film late, as originally his part was to be changed to a female one, with Meryl Streep (thank God that didn't happen). The film follows the plot of the book quite closely, but the ending is different and the motives and manner in which Mitch solves his problem is also different. In the film, Mitch ends up battered, but with his integrity and professional ethics intact. Cruise's demand?
Grisham enjoyed the film! "I thought Tom Cruise did a good job. He played the innocent young associate very well." I liked its pace, its sets, as well as its gripping story-line. It was interesting to see the old computers and the invaluable support played by the land-line telephones. Not a mobile in sight! As with Three Days of the Condor, the Director, cameramen and actors delivered. Both films rank highly with me - up there with The Day of the Jackal. Which reminds me, I must watch that again, too.
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