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Picture of a movie: 13 Days
Picture of a movie: Three Days of the Condor

2 Movies

Suspense

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Picture of a movie: Klute
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Klute

1971
Six months after the disappearance of Tuscarora, PA businessman Tom Gruneman, his boss, Peter Cable, and his wife, Holly Gruneman, hire Tom's friend, private detective John Klute to find out what happened to Tom, as the police have been unable to do so, and despite John having no expertise in missing persons cases. The only lead is a typewritten obscene letter Tom purportedly wrote to Manhattan actress/model/call girl Bree Daniel, who admits to having received such letters from someone, and since having received several mysterious telephone calls as well. The suggestion/belief is that Tom was one of Bree's past johns, although she has no recollection of him when shown his photograph. Bree's tricking is both a compulsion and a financial need. In their initial encounters, John and Bree do whatever they can to exert their psychological dominance over the other, especially as Bree initially refused to even speak to him. Despite their less than friendly start, they embark on a personal relationship based on emotional need, but it is a relationship Bree tries to sabotage because of those same issues which causes her to turn tricks. As they follow the leads through Bree's call girl world, they know they're getting close to finding the truth when someone continues to torment Bree. They believe the key to Tom's disappearance is a violent john who tried to kill her a few years earlier when Tom disappeared but who she doesn't remember. The questions become whether John and Bree can discover his identity and stop him before he tries to kill Bree again, and whether there is a future for them together.
Picture of a movie: Harper
movies

Harper

1966
Lew Harper is a Los Angeles based private investigator whose marriage to Susan Harper, who he still loves, is ending in imminent divorce since she can't stand being second fiddle to his work, which is always taking him away at the most inopportune of times. His latest client is tough talking and physically disabled Elaine Sampson, who wants him to find her wealthy husband, Ralph Sampson, missing now for twenty-four hours, ever since he disappeared at Van Nuys Airport after having just arrived from Vegas. No one seems to like Ralph, Elaine included. She believes he is cavorting with another woman. Harper got the case on the recommendation of the Sampsons' lawyer and Harper's personal friend, milquetoast Albert Graves, who is unrequitedly in love with Sampson's seductive daughter, Miranda Sampson. Miranda, whom Harper later states throws herself at anything "pretty in pants", also has a decidedly cold relationship with her stepmother, Elaine. As Harper begins his investigation, he is often joined by one or two new sidekicks, Miranda, and/or Allan Taggert, Ralph Sampson's private pilot who was the last person to see him before his disappearance. Living on the Sampson estate, Taggert is also Miranda's casual boyfriend, although his heart lies elsewhere. (Harper nicknames Taggert "Beauty" for the latter's preppy good looks.) It is finally confirmed that Sampson has been kidnapped after a ransom note is received. As Harper follows leads, he ends up in the underbelly of Los Angeles, which includes encounters with Betty Fraley (a junkie lounge singer), Fay Estabrook (an ex-movie ingénue now an overweight alcoholic), and Claude (a religious cult leader). At each of Harper's stops, people seem to want to beat him up and/or kill him. The case takes a turn after they decide to pay the $500,000 ransom to see where it leads.
Picture of a movie: Mirage
movies

Mirage

1965
Walking down twenty-seven flights of stairs after the power goes out in the New York City office building he is in, David Stillwell emerges outside on the ground level to find that a man he didn't know either jumped or was pushed out a window to his death. That man was Charles Calvin, the head of Unidyne, a humanitarian organization that works toward world peace. David notices other unusual goings-on. What he considers his normal routine that others he knows should recognize, don't. People that he doesn't know seem to know him, such as the beautiful young woman with who he walked down the stairs but who ran off when they got to the bottom. And things that he thought he saw or thought he knew end up not being the case, such as the multiple sub-basement levels he thought were in that office building which don't seem to exist in the clear light of day. When he finally thinks about it, he believes he has some form of amnesia. As an example, he knows that he works as a cost accountant, but he has no idea what a cost accountant is or does. He soon learns that some people are following him and are after something that he has, he not knowing what it is, and that they will shoot to kill if they don't get it. Conversely, the young woman, who he learns is named Shela and was once a love of his, is trying to convince him to cooperate with the people after him if only to save his life. Every direction David turns for official assistance, he comes up not trusting anyone, with the exception of a novice private detective he hires named Ted Caselle. Shela and the people after David all refer to "the major" as the person at the top who wants what David has. David may have to look deep into his troubled psyche to come out of his amnesia to learn who the major is, what he wants, whether David is willing to give it up if he indeed does have it, and that the death of Charles Calvin had some part to play. But David may be dead before he can even make an informed decision to cooperate or not.