The Third Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 1

And so it begins. December 2019 I mean. And with is comes The Third Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films.

And let us begin, as is only numerically cogent, with door number 1.

And lurking behind, what do we find, but Sydney Pollack’s 1975 espionage thriller Three Days of the Condor.

Starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, it’s a film with a fairly run-of-the-mill premise, that somehow manages to be significantly better than it probably should be. Given that it’s loosely adapted from a novel entitled Six Days of the Condor, you could feel short-changed about the three days that didn’t make it from print to celluloid but, while I’m no expert in the optimum number of days one needs to extract full enjoyment from a Condor, in the case of this movie, three days seems ample and allows the narrative to move along at a reasonably compelling pace. The plot is, for the most part, entirely preposterous, but somehow seems plausible within the context of the film, which is really all anyone can ask from a movie.

Definitely one I’d watch again.

 

Score for Christmasishness

It’s definitely, quite visibly, set in the period leading up to Christmas but Christmas doesn’t seem wholly relevant to the plot. Or at all relevant. But there are Christmas decorations, and Christmas songs throughout the entire movie so it deserves to be considered quite Christmas(ish).