Classic Trailer Rewatch: 1970s Conspiracy Thriller ‘The Parallax View’
by Alex Billington
November 5, 2024
Source: YouTube
In honor of this year’s Election Day in the US, have a look at one of our favorite conspiracy thrillers. The Parallax View, directed by the great Alan J. Pakula, originally opened in theaters June 1974. It’s one of many conspiracy thrillers from the 70s about how the US government is super shady and caught up in all kinds of sneaky operations. It’s about a reporter’s investigation into a secretive organization, the Parallax Corporation, whose business is political assassination. 3 years after witnessing the murder of a senator atop Seattle’s Space Needle, reporter Joseph Frady digs into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the event—and stumbles into a labyrinthine conspiracy far more sinister than he could have imagined. Warren Beatty stars with Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, and Paula Prentiss. I had never seen this movie until the Criterion re-release a few years ago, and it blew me away. Its been stuck in my mind ever since. The unsettling secrecy of everything, the visuals, the never-ending maze he is in. Criterion adds: “The Parallax View’s coolly stylized, shadow-etched compositions by the acclaimed cinematographer Gordon Willis give visual expression to a mood that begins as an anxious whisper and ends as a scream into the void.” Exactly.
Here’s a series of classic trailers for Alan J. Pakula’s 1974 film The Parallax View, found on YouTube:
The Parallax View, a superb drama about one man’s paranoia that turns out to be total, incredible fact, ranks amount the best political thrillers. Warren Beatty is a news reporter who, along with seven others, witnesses the assassination of a political candidate. When the other seven die in “accidents,” the newsman begins to doubt the official position: that a lone madman was responsible for the crime. He imagines a sophisticated network of highly trained murderers. But his nightmares pale against the bizarre truth he uncovers. The Parallax View is directed by the acclaimed American filmmaker Alan J. Pakula, his fourth feature film after directing Klute (1971) and Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973), and just before All the President’s Men (1976). The screenplay is by David Giler and Lorenzo Semple Jr.; based on the book “The Parallax View” by Loren Singer. Produced by Alan J. Pakula. The film originally opened in US theaters on June 19th, 1974. It has since been re-released by the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray (in 2021).
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