"The Untouchables" The Snowball (1963)

Good acting and well-paced storytelling make this episode from a vintage TV-series real worthy. As the brilliant college student turned relentless hoodlum, the young Redford brings everything for the role to be the pivotal one that it is supposed to be: A sharp toughness that can reveal cruelty in such a believable way, that soon you are looking forward to his next Machiavelian move; a coldness to his overall behavior that makes a definite contrast to his youthful beauty, yet feels thoroughly congruent with his ultimate goals. Redford's last scene together with Gerald Hiken as Benny Angel is especially hard to see. Robert Stack as Eliot Ness and the menacing Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitty round out a recommendable hour.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

A spy (mis)adventure, originally called Six Days of the Condor, featuring a typical rather-wasted de luxe cast. Its plot is a crude Kafkian labyrinth of greedy motives. The acting (Faye Dunaway in particular) is restrained; Robert Redford, the CIA agent who just reads books, stars almost like an urban Jeremiah Johnson --minus the beard. Bergmanian actor Max von Sydow, in a wonderfully upstaging but considerably concise supporting part, actually gets to reveal the nastily intriguing nature of the state of affairs; he would shine again in a similar mode as General Patton's assassin, in the much less appreciated Brass Target (1978). Sydney Pollack's elegant setting, including the well-directed violent scenes, gives the movie an overall quality of craftsmanship.