Review: The Parallax View (1974)
Created at the pinnacle of the political paranoia thriller trend, 1974's The Parallax View is one of many tales to confide that we are being watched, controlled, and manipulated by shadowy forces. Such paranoia has been around for ages, but it seems to have reached a fever pitch during the seventies against the backdrop of Watergate and a total erosion of faith with our leaders, coupled with a sense of dread as faceless corporations achieved more power than anyone had previously imagined. The Parallax View stars Warren Beatty ( Dick Tracy ) as a reporter and a former-alcoholic who is one of the witnesses of a political assassination. Three years after the murder, six of those witnesses have turned up dead: from Beatty's cynical and disinterested perspective, the deaths are easily explained: heart attacks, accidents, nothing suspicious. But when his friend (Paula Prentiss) believes she's uncovered a conspiracy and then herself ends up dead, Beatty can't deny that his o...