Faye Dunaway Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941, Bascom, Florida) starred as Kathy Hale in Three Days of the Condor (1975). She arrived on the picture between Chinatown (1974) and Network (1976) — the three-film stretch that defines her place in 1970s American cinema.
Kathy Hale belongs to Dunaway's hostage trilogy
Kathy is a Brooklyn Heights photographer kidnapped at gunpoint by a stranger and held in her own apartment for two days. The role required Dunaway to move from terror to cooperation to attraction without making any of the transitions feel staged. She does it largely through stillness; Kathy watches Turner more than she speaks to him.
"Kathy's photographs tell us who she is before she does. They are pictures of empty places — streets in November, trees with no leaves. She is a person who knows about being alone." — Janet Maslin, The New York Times (1975) (archive subscription required)
"Dunaway gives the part a wary intelligence. She is figuring him out as quickly as she can, and we can see her doing it." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1975)
Pollack used unorthodox methods to push her into the kidnapping scene's level of fear:
"The cameras were rolling, I was in position, and suddenly Sydney lunged at me, growling 'I am going to get you!' I'm tied up at this point, unable to get away or move much at all, but Sydney kept moving toward me, his eyes glaring at me as he went on detailing all the horrible things he was going to do to me, and let me tell you, Sydney has an inventive mind. He is also a great actor, and he scared the hell out of me." — Faye Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby (1995) (book, not available online)
Dunaway's 1970s run is unmatched
| Year | Film | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Bonnie and Clyde | Arthur Penn | First Oscar nomination |
| 1968 | The Thomas Crown Affair | Norman Jewison | Star turn opposite McQueen |
| 1974 | Chinatown | Roman Polanski | Second Oscar nomination |
| 1975 | Three Days of the Condor | Sydney Pollack | Kathy Hale |
| 1976 | Network | Sidney Lumet | Best Actress Oscar |
| 1978 | Eyes of Laura Mars | Irvin Kershner | |
| 1981 | Mommie Dearest | Frank Perry | Joan Crawford |
The Condor performance sits between Chinatown and Network — between Polanski's Evelyn Mulwray, who knows everything and cannot say it, and Lumet's Diana Christensen, who knows everything and will say it on television. Kathy is in the middle: a person who learns, in three days, what kind of country she actually lives in. (wikipedia, imdb)
The Golden Globe nomination recognized the difficulty of the part
Dunaway was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama for Condor. The part was structurally difficult — much of it is reaction, not action — and Dunaway's choice to underplay rather than dramatize earned the recognition.
"She is the most precise actress of her generation. She picks the angle of her head and the timing of a glance the way other actors pick their dialogue." — Roger Ebert, Awake in the Dark (2006) (book, not available online)
Dunaway brought the photographer's eye to the part
Kathy is a working photographer. Dunaway prepared by spending time with photographer Inge Morath and shooting her own black-and-white work in the New York winter. The photographs that hang in Kathy's apartment in the film were sourced and selected to match what a real photographer of Kathy's described disposition — solitary, melancholic, observant — would have made. (cinephiliabeyond)