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musings on
synchronicity
and the value of
paying attention

I know Halloween is over, but talk about spooks. The spy kind. CIA variety. A lot of very prescient and interesting scenarios unfold in this 1975 Robert Redford thriller. In the footsteps of John LeCarré and George Smiley, the Condor story is a tale within a tale. It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, what with all the direct but unexpected twists and turns. It all takes place in that season of "not quite winter. . . November."

Of course, after the initial shock, Redford gets very savvy very quickly and stays one step ahead. (We even get a clue about the genesis of the term "cleaning crew" and who those "janitors" might be.) But finding someone our hero can trust is tricky. In a line near the end of the film, Condor says to his handler, "You guys think not getting caught in a lie is the same as tellling the truth." Sounds too familiar to real life thirty-some years later.

Given that Condor was made in 1975 — just two years after the oil embargo, there are fascinating location settings and props to appreciate, especially since the film was shot in New York City and Washington, D.C. The Guggenheim Museum provides a backdrop, as do the Twin Towers, since that's the site of the CIA's New York headquarters. Eastern was still an independent airline, and Washington National Airport hadn't been renamed for President Reagan. Cell phones didn't exist. Yup. Lots of rotary-dial telephones and phone booths on street corners instead. Television sets with mechanical dials for changing channels. Phone taps done by blue handset and alligator clips in a routing station wire room. My, how times have changed. Or have they? Take a look at 2007's Michael Clayton. . . .

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