Warren Beatty stars as Joe Frady, a second rate investigative reporter who has a habit of making enemies wherever he goes. He receives a frantic call from colleague Lee (Paula Prentiss) who years ago witnessed the assassination of a presidential hopeful at the Space Needle in Seattle. Since, witnesses have started dying mysteriously. Lee feels there is more to the assassination than the “lone gunman” who fell to his death.

When Lee turns up in the morgue, Frady follows her leads to the Parallax Corporation, a think tank that appears to be recruiting assassins. Frady fills out their employment application in a manner that will make him appear lone and crazed.

At his interview, he’s screened a montage of rapidly accelerating images juxtaposed with words like “mother” and “country” and monitored for his reaction. Frady then follows one of the assassins to an auditorium where a senator prepares a campaign speech, but begins to suspect that he’s been set up for what follows.

Coming off his masterpiece in paranoid suspense, Klute, director Alan J. Pakula generates a mood of stylish intrigue in the first hour with plenty of tantalizing Kennedy assassination story threads. The lighting by Gordon Willis is drenched in shadow and vivid in making us feel that someone is definitely out to get us.

Another positive is Beatty’s energetic performance, playing an idealist who finally gets the story right, but is unable to prove his suspicions until it’s too late. The “down” ending is another hallmark of the era and probably would not be signed off on if this film were remade today.

The Parallax View is a creation of its day. With a screenplay by David Giler and Lorenzo Semple Jr. from a novel by Loren Singer, most of the story feels completely ludicrous now. That senators could be getting wacked out without broader suspicion or investigation was likely a comment on the assassinations of the ’60s which to many – like Beatty, who served as a producer here – seemed to have a sinister common thread.

Based on what we now know about Enron or the White House, the idea of the board room as all-knowing, all-powerful and capable of maintaining an elaborate cover-up is something not even an idiot would accept any more. In the early ’70s, it made for some good popcorn entertainment. The Parallax View lacks any three dimensional characters or believability, a disappointing contrast to Klute.

The chief reason to see the film is the audacious Parallax recruitment film. This was the work of documentary producer Chuck Braverman. A similar montage was employed for the opening credits of Soylent Green and – set to sweeping classical music – were quite vogue at the time.