The Parallax View
Encyclopedia
The Parallax View is a 1974 American thriller film directed by Alan J. Pakula
Alan J. Pakula
Alan Jay Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer noted for his contributions to the conspiracy thriller genre.-Career:...

 and starring Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

, Paula Prentiss
Paula Prentiss
Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...

, Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...

 and William Daniels
William Daniels
William David Daniels is an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild . He is known for his performance as Dustin Hoffman's father in The Graduate , as John Adams in 1776, as Carter Nash in Captain Nice, as Mr. George Feeny in ABC's Boy Meets World, as the voice of KITT in...

. The film was adapted by David Giler
David Giler
David Giler is an American filmmaker who has been active in the motion picture industry since the early 1960s.He started his career as a writer, providing scripts for television programs such as Kraft Suspense Theatre and The Man from U.N.C.L.E....

, Lorenzo Semple Jr and an uncredited Robert Towne
Robert Towne
Robert Towne is an American screenwriter and director. His most notable work may be his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown .-Film:...

 from the 1970 novel by Loren Singer
Loren Singer
Loren Adelson Singer was an American novelist, best-known for his 1970 political thriller, The Parallax View, which was made into a successful 1974 film, of the same name, starring Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, Hume Cronyn and William Daniels.Singer was born in Buffalo, New York on March 5, 1923...

. The story concerns a reporter's dangerous investigation into an obscure organization, the Parallax Corporation, whose primary, but not ostensible, enterprise is political assassination.

The Parallax View is the second installment of Pakula's Political Paranoia trilogy, along with Klute
Klute
Klute is a 1971 film which tells the story of a prostitute who assists a detective in solving a missing persons case. It stars Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi and Roy Scheider. The movie was written by Andy Lewis and Dave Lewis and directed by Alan J. Pakula.Klute was the first...

(1971
1971 in film
The year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music...

) and All the President's Men
All the President's Men (film)
All the President's Men is a 1976 Academy Award-winning political thriller film based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post...

(1976
1976 in film
The year 1976 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*March 22 - Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars science fiction film...

); The Parallax View was the only one not released by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 Pictures.

Plot

TV newswoman Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss
Paula Prentiss
Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...

) is one of many witnesses to the public assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 of presidential candidate Senator Charles Carroll (Bill Joyce
William Joyce (actor)
William Joyce was an American actor.In 1959, Jack Webb picked him over Jimmy Dean to play the title role in a television adaptation of Johnny Guitar....

) atop the Seattle Space Needle. A waiter armed with a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...

 is chased but falls to his death. Meanwhile, a second waiter, also armed with a gun, leaves the crime scene unnoticed. A special committee decides that the assassination was the work of a lone gunman.

Three years later, Carter visits her former boyfriend and colleague, newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

), in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

. Lee tells Frady that she feels there is more to the killing - that six of the witnesses to Carroll's assassination have died and she fears she will be next. Frady does not take her seriously. Not long afterwards, Lee is found dead and her death is judged by the police to be either a voluntary or accidental drug overdose.

Investigating Carter's leads, Frady goes to the small town of Salmontail whose sheriff, L.D. Wicker (Kelly Thordsen), attempts to trap him below a dam after an alarm has sounded indicating that the floodgates are opening. Frady manages to narrowly escape but the sheriff drowns. Frady finds information on the Parallax Corporation in the sheriff's apartment and learns that its real business is recruiting political assassins.

While interviewing Carroll's former aide Austin Tucker (William Daniels
William Daniels
William David Daniels is an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild . He is known for his performance as Dustin Hoffman's father in The Graduate , as John Adams in 1776, as Carter Nash in Captain Nice, as Mr. George Feeny in ABC's Boy Meets World, as the voice of KITT in...

), aboard Tucker's boat, a bomb explodes. Frady survives but is believed dead, and decides to apply to Parallax under an assumed identity. Jack Younger (Walter McGinn), a Parallax official, assures Frady that he is the kind of man they are interested in. Frady is accepted for training in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 where he watches a slide show that conflates positive images with negative actions.

Frady later spies a Parallax man he recalls from a picture of a waiter taken the day Senator Carroll was murdered. He follows the man and watches him take out a bag from another car's trunk, then drive to an airport and check it as baggage on a plane. Frady boards the plane himself. He notices a Senator aboard, but not the Parallax man. Frady writes a warning on a napkin which he slips into the drink service cart. The warning is found and the plane returns to Los Angeles. Everybody is evacuated - just before a bomb explodes.

Frady's generally skeptical editor Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...

) listens to a secretly recorded tape of a conversation Frady had. A disguised Parallax operative delivers coffee and food to Rintels' news office. The editor is poisoned and the tape is removed.

Continuing his investigation, Frady follows the Parallax assassins to the dress rehearsal for a political rally for Senator George Hammond (Jim Davis
Jim Davis (actor)
Jim Davis was an American actor, best known for his role as Jock Ewing in the CBS prime-time soap Dallas, a role which he held up until his death in April 1981.-Biography:...

). Frady hides in the auditorium's rafters to secretly observe the Parallax men, posing as security personnel, also in the rafters. Too late, Frady realizes he has been set up as a "patsy" or "fall guy", as Hammond is shot dead by an unseen gunman. As Frady is trying to escape, he is sighted in the rafters by the marching band's tuba player, and a Parallax agent kills Frady with a shotgun.

An official assassination investigation committee, the same which determined a lone gunman killed Senator Carroll, officially reports that newspaper reporter Joe Frady was the lone assassin of Senator Hammond. The committee further state their hope that the verdict will end political assassination conspiracy theories and that they will publish more information in the future. They do not take questions from the press.

Cast

  • Warren Beatty
    Warren Beatty
    Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

     as Joseph Frady
  • Paula Prentiss
    Paula Prentiss
    Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...

     as Lee Carter
  • Hume Cronyn
    Hume Cronyn
    Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...

     as Bill Rintels
  • William Daniels
    William Daniels
    William David Daniels is an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild . He is known for his performance as Dustin Hoffman's father in The Graduate , as John Adams in 1776, as Carter Nash in Captain Nice, as Mr. George Feeny in ABC's Boy Meets World, as the voice of KITT in...

     as Austin Tucker
  • Walter McGinn as Jack Younger
  • Kelly Thorsden as Sheriff L.D. Wicker
  • Chuck Waters as Thomas Richard Linder
  • Earl Hindman
    Earl Hindman
    Earl John Hindman was an American actor, best-known for his role as the kindly neighbor Wilson W. Wilson Jr...

     as Deputy Red
  • William Joyce
    William Joyce
    William Joyce , nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an Irish-American fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He was hanged for treason by the British as a result of his wartime activities, even though he had renounced his British nationality...

     as Senator Charles Carroll
  • Bettie Johnson as Mrs Carroll
  • Bill McKinney
    Bill McKinney
    Bill McKinney is an American character actor whose most famous role was the sadistic mountain man in the movie Deliverance...

     as Parallax Assassin
  • Jo Ann Harris
    Jo Ann Harris
    Jo Ann Harris is an American actress. Born in Los Angeles, she is known for her role in the film The Beguiled as the sultry 17-year-old Carol who seduces Clint Eastwood's character. Harris had a small singing role in Newsies as "Patrick's mother", the woman searching for her son in the first part...

     as Chrissy - Frady's Girl
  • Ted Gehring as Schecter - Hotel Clerk
  • Lee Pulford as Shirley - Salmontail Bar Girl
  • Doria Cook-Nelson as Gale from Salmontail
  • Jim Davis
    Jim Davis (actor)
    Jim Davis was an American actor, best known for his role as Jock Ewing in the CBS prime-time soap Dallas, a role which he held up until his death in April 1981.-Biography:...

     as George Hammond
  • Joan Lemmo as Organist
  • Kenneth Mars
    Kenneth Mars
    Kenneth Mars was an American television, movie, and voice actor. He may be best-remembered for his roles in several Mel Brooks films: the insane Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind in 1968's The Producers, and the relentless Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Fredrich Kemp in 1974's Young Frankenstein...

     as Former FBI Agent Will
  • William Jordan
    William Jordan
    William Jordan may refer to:*Hamilton Jordan , American politician, chief of staff to President Carter*William-Jordan , Crusader baron*William Jordan , American Olympic gold medalist rower...

     as Tucker's Aide
  • Edward Winter
    Edward Winter
    Edward Dean Winter was an American actor, perhaps most well known for his role as military intelligence officer Colonel Flagg on the television series M*A*S*H.-Early career:...

     as Senator Jameson


Production

Most of the images used in the montage were of anonymous figures or patriotic backgrounds, with occasional historical individuals such as Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

, Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII
-Papal election:Following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, Roncalli was elected Pope, to his great surprise. He had even arrived in the Vatican with a return train ticket to Venice. Many had considered Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, a possible candidate, but, although archbishop...

, and, notably for the film's subject matter, Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

 in the picture taken moments after his shooting. The montage also uses a drawing by Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....

 of the Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 character Thor
Thor (Marvel Comics)
Thor is a fictional superhero who appears in publications published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Journey into Mystery #83 and was created by editor-plotter Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, and penciller Jack Kirby....

. The drawing is a cropped image from the cover of Thor Annual #4 (December 1971). The montage also includes a cropped image from the cover of Thor #135 (December 1966) featuring a creature known as the Man Beast
Man Beast
The Man-Beast is a fictional character who appears in the comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appears in Thor #135 The Man-Beast is a fictional character who appears in the comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appears in Thor #135 The Man-Beast is a...

.

The distinctive anamorphic photography with long lens, unconventional framing, and shallow focus were supervised by Gordon Willis
Gordon Willis
Gordon Willis, ASC, is an American cinematographer best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series as well as Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan....

.

The river scene was filmed at the Gorge Dam
Skagit River Hydroelectric Project
The Skagit River Hydroelectric Project is a series of dams with hydroelectric power-generating stations on the Skagit River in northern Washington State. The project is owned and operated by Seattle City Light to provide electric power for the City of Seattle and surrounding communities...

, on the Skagit River (Ross Lake National Recreation Area) in Washington State. (48 41' 51" N, 121 12' 29" W)

The Space Needle
Space Needle
The Space Needle is a tower in Seattle, Washington and is a major landmark of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and a symbol of Seattle. Located at the Seattle Center, it was built for the 1962 World's Fair, during which time nearly 20,000 people a day used the elevators, with over...

 in Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

 is seen extensively in the first assassination sequence.

Critical reception

At the time of its release, The Parallax View received mixed reactions from critics. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "The Parallax View will no doubt remind some reviewers of Executive Action (1973), another movie released at about the same time that advanced a conspiracy theory of assassination. It's a better use of similar material, however, because it tries to entertain instead of staying behind to argue". In his review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...

 wrote, "Neither Mr. Pakula nor his screenwriters, David Giler and Lorenzo Semple, Jr., display the wit that Alfred Hitchcock might have used to give the tale importance transcending immediate plausibility. The moviemakers have, instead, treated their central idea so soberly that they sabotage credulity". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine's Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....

 wrote, "We would probably be better off rethinking—or better yet, not thinking about—the whole dismal business, if only to put an end to ugly and dramatically unsatisfying products like The Parallax View". In 2006, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

critic Chris Nashawaty wrote, "The Parallax View is a mother of a thriller.... And Beatty, always an underrated actor thanks (or no thanks) to his off-screen rep as a Hollywood lothario, gives a hell of a performance in a career that's been full of them". The motion picture won the Critics Award at the Avoriaz Film Festival (France) and was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe award for Best Picture. Gordon Willis won the Best Cinematography award from the National Society of Film Critics (USA).

See also

  • Assassinations in fiction
    Assassinations in fiction
    Assassinations have formed a major plot element in various works of fiction and have also attracted scholarly attention. In Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture, Stephen Gundle and Lucia Rinaldi analyze modern Italian assassinations in their historical...

  • Conspiracy thriller
  • The Manchurian Candidate
    The Manchurian Candidate
    The Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....

  • Arlington Road
    Arlington Road
    Arlington Road is a 1999 American drama/mystery film, which tells the story of a widowed George Washington University professor who suspects his new neighbors are involved in terrorism and becomes obsessed with foiling their terrorist plot. The film stars Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, and...


External links

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