The Parallax View
Overview
Of the three films that make up director Alan J. Pakula's "paranoid trilogy" (KLUTE, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, and THE PARALLAX VIEW), the latter most strongly conveys the paranoid atmosphere of the 1960s and '70s. A stylish suspense-thriller, THE PARALLAX VIEW mirrors the political distrust Americans began to feel during the period following the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War, culminating in the Watergate conspiracy. The film stars Warren Beatty as investigative journalist Joe Frady, whose former girlfriend and colleague, Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), witnesses the assassination of a U.S. senator at the Seattle Space Needle. A government report declares it the work of a lone gunman, but when eyewitnesses begin showing up dead, Carter is convinced that a wider conspiracy is at work. Probing deeper, Frady uncovers the operations of the Parallax Corporation, which recruits social misfits and uses mind control techniques to turn them into assassins. In keeping with classic 1970s film, the story is a suspenseful, well-acted thriller with a surprise ending that will resound with the viewer long after the credits start rolling.
Awards:
Main Cast & Crew:
Alan J. Pakula - Director
Warren Beatty
Paula Prentiss
William Daniels
Walter McGinn
Hume Cronyn
Kelly Thorsden
Chuck Waters
Earl Hindman
Jo Ann Harris
Jim Davis
Details
- Format: Blu-ray
- Color Format: Color
- UPC: 715515254915
- Genre: MYSTERY / SUSPENSE / THRILLER
- Rating: R (MPAA)
- Release Date: February 2021
Movie Reviews
Notes:
Theatrical release: June 14, 1974
Shot on location in and around San Francisco, Malibu, and Washington state.
The PARALLAX VIEW was a box office success and helped establish director Alan J. Pakula as a master of the conspiracy drama.
The film is an adaptation of the novel by Loren Singer.
Reviews:
"...A deeply paranoid film. This is its strength as a disturbing entertainment..." - 12/01/1974 Sight and Sound, p.54-5
"[T]he best part of Pakula’s film is the wide-angled photography from Gordon Willis that lends tremendous menace to the empty auditoriums and offices that Beatty darts around in, trying to evade capture as the nondescript agents of Parallax close in on him." - 06/05/2020 The Atlantic
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