The Parallax View (1974)

An ambitious reporter gets in way-over-his-head trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world's headlines.

Director:

Alan J. Pakula

Writers:

David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr.

Stars:

Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels

2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Warren Beatty	...	Joseph Frady
Paula Prentiss	...	Lee Carter
William Daniels	...	Austin Tucker
Walter McGinn	...	Jack Younger
Hume Cronyn	...	Bill Rintels
Kelly Thordsen	...	Sheriff L.D. Wicker
Chuck Waters	...	Thomas Richard Linder
Earl Hindman	...	Deputy Red
William Joyce	...	Senator Charles Carroll (as Bill Joyce)
Betty Murray	...	Mrs. Charles Carroll (as Bettie Johnson)
Bill McKinney	...	Parallax Assassin
Jo Ann Harris	...	Chrissy - Frady's Girl (as JoAnne Harris)
Ted Gehring	...	Schecter - Hotel Clerk
Lee Pulford	...	Shirley - Salmontail Bar Girl
Doria Cook-Nelson	...	Gale from Salmontail (as Doria Cook)

Storyline

Joe Frady is a determined reporter who often needs to defend his work from colleagues. After the assassination of a prominent U.S. senator, Frady begins to notice that reporters present during the assassination are dying mysteriously. After getting more involved in the case, Frady begins to realize that the assassination was part of a conspiracy somehow involving the Parallax Corporation, an enigmatic training institute. He then decides to enroll for the Parallax training himself to discover the truth.

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Plot Keywords:

conspiracy | reporter | investigative reporter | conspiracy theory | assassination plot | 

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Taglines:

There is no conspiracy. Just twelve people dead.

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

Alan J. Pakula asked for an empty banquet room, to increase the nightmarish side of the final scene. The producers accepted because that permitted them to avoid paid extras to fill the room.

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Goofs

The politician played by Jim Davis is called George Hammond by the investigating committee at the end, but earlier in the film when we first see his picture in a newspaper on the flight, the caption beneath his photo says John Hammond.

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Quotes

Gail: They say a martini is like a woman's breast: one ain't enough and three is too many.

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Connections

Spoofed in The Game (1997)

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Soundtracks

Moon River
Written by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer

User Reviews

Existentialism with a political twist

I saw this film first some twenty years ago and loved it. I saw it again this week and found the film superior to most other films of director Pakula and found it to be another gem from cinematographer Gordon Willis.

"Parallax View" never won Oscars or other major awards for Pakula but this film along with "Klute" and "Sophie's Choice" are his finest works. Articles on Pakula often focus on his award-winning work and neglect this fine movie.

What was great in this film that was missing in "All the president's men" or "The pelican brief"? Here the element of existentialism sucked in the viewer to participate in the whirlpool of deceit, exemplified most by the test given to the lead character in the offices of Parallax Corporation, the staccato editing (John Wheeler) that exemplifies the individual's helplessness, and the imaginative photography (Willis) that stunts the individual (not crowds) against the himalayan landscapes of glass and steel.

The film was made at a time when Hollywood was brimming with great films with a similar line of thought (Spielberg's "Duel", Coppola's "The Conversation", Penn's "Night Moves", Polanski's "Chinatown", Antonionni's "Zabriskie Point", Altman's "Nashville", Boorman's "Point Blank", etc.) internalizing the external, as Camus would have best described it. "Parallax View" among all these films touched the subject of politics using the least obscure metaphors and similies.

Can one forget the dead calm in the sea before the explosion/assasination? Or the assassination viewed from the roof top of the victim's cart colliding with empty tables and chairs towards the end of the film? None of Pakula's other films have such hardhitting scenes as these, even if one were to discount the unconvincing cool response of the lead character in the airplane when he realizes that there is a live bomb on it.

This is a film that grips you nearly 30 years after it was made, when US politics seems to be at a point very close to what the film depicted three decades ago.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 June 1974 (Canada)

Also Known As:

The Parallax View

Filming Locations:

Griffith Park & Southern Railroad - 4400 Crystal Springs Dr, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,942

Company Credits

Production Co:

Doubleday Productions, Gus, Harbor Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1