A few years ago, I realized that I had missed a lot in the 1970s.  I’m sure the jaded among you will say It was the drugs; but, I have to admit, I didn’t do drugs then, and the only drugs I do now are prescription.  (And I do enjoy wine, preferably red.)  Seriously, there are too many of my prescriptions for my tastes, but I do enjoy living, breathing, and this thing we term as reality.

[My real drug is books.  Novels.  Fiction.  I am an admitted biblioholic, and more power to my addiction.]

So, yes, I missed a lot during the seventies.  I eschewed rock and roll for books and movies.  Somehow, I was late to the party: when Escape From the Planet of the Apes came out, one of my best friends had to tell me about Planet of the Apes, and a sequel I had somehow never heard of, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and then I was hooked.  I always seem to be a few years late.

Somehow, during my senior year of high school, I missed seeing Three Days of the Condor during its first run in the theaters, or, as we say in the South, theeAYters.  41+ years later, I have no idea how or why I missed it.  Can’t remember.  A mystery to me.  But I realized this deficiency a couple of years ago, and read the novel upon which the film was based, Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady, which I got from the local library, a resource I urge you to use immediately.

Six Days of the Condor.  Great novel.  Emotional, hard-hitting, thrilling, commercial fiction.

Three Days of the Condor hasn’t come on TV for a few years, that I know of, so tonight I decided to see if it was On Demand through Comcast.

It was.

Good.  Really good.  The only drawback is one of the film’s quintessential charms: the ending.  It kind of leaves you hanging.  But that’s okay; with the movie’s storyline, it works.

So it only took me 40+ years to see it.  Next up: The Midnight Man, The Black Windmill, Duffy, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Cannibal Girls, Get Carter, Zardoz (for the xth time, but it’s wonderful) and Klute.  There are so many more, but these are the ones on my current list.

Movie party, anyone?