[ND Kates]

I learned that I am writing something with intrigue, but that is possibly not a classical thriller, in that it doesn’t have a single villain…though it does have many of the other elements, including life and death stakes, at times.
I cheated a bit by watching Three Days of the Condor, which is one of the example films, but I thought it was worth taking a look at it as the class begins.
Redford’s character (Joe Turner) is unwitting—he just happens to be out at lunch when the entire office is murdered, for reasons that are not clear at the beginning of the film. He is resourceful because he reads everything, and also because he has military training, plus knows a lot about phone systems.
The dangerous villains are a subsection of the CIA, where he works. They have functionaries who carry out killings for them, but the villains are powerful men behind the scenes.
Stakes are very high: they killed seven people, and are trying to kill him. they keep trying, even as he outwits them (or shoots before he is killed, in the first attempt).
Big Mystery: who is hiding what, and why? What is worth killing all these people for?
Big Intrigue: a lot of what is going on is baffling to Turner. Why would a group within the CIA start murdering their own?
Big Suspense: is he going to be able to turn the tables on whoever is hunting him, before they kill him?
You really don’t know why things are happening for much of the film, and it is a bit surprising that things change, in the end, so that he doesn’t get killed, Atwood does.
The film seems extremely questionable now in its sexual politics, ie his liaison with the woman he kidnaps is a bit rapey, though she seems to initiate it.