When I wrote this post about the movie, 3 Days of the Condor, based on the book pictured above, I missed something huge: James Grady was living in Missoula when this book was published in 1974.
How could I have missed this?
As a free-lance journalist living in Montana during this period it’s entirely possible Mr. James Grady interacted with Mr. John Talbot, the “former” CIA man turned newspaper guy long-time readers of the blog will be very familiar with, along with his son, Mr. bourbon-enthusiast, Pete.
The now-vacant building (and some day massive condo project) where Missoula’s newspaper once rolled out is located on Higgins. Now that I know Grady lived in Missoula, it makes much more sense that the CIA Agent who goes after Redford’s character in the movie, Turner, is named “Higgins”. Here’s some of the Dialogue (near the end):
Putting aside the synchronistic fact I lived on “Turner Ct.” when I first moved to Missoula, Higgins (the main street through downtown) is a name I have discovered echoing in particularly curious places, which I will demonstrate next with excerpts from Leslie Fiedler’s book, Being Busted
For Leslie Fiedler’s own, admitted historical context on being published by a publication that got CIA funding, along with his impression of “The Company” shifting focus during the time period he challenged the University of Montana President, here are some key passages from “Higgins Avenue: 1958”:
During WWII, from 1943-45, Leslie Fiedler, “served as a Japanese interpreter and military cryptologist in the U.S. Naval Reserve” according to Wikipedia. Fiedler also mentions the book The Catcher in the Rye in Being Busted. Curiously, I also came across a reference to Catcher in the Rye in Grady’s book while looking for something else.
There is a lot packed into this page of Grady’s Condor, starting with the character with a philosopher’s name (Heidegger and his notorious Nazi problem), and ending with Catcher in the Rye. To avoid getting distracted, I’ll move on to other examples of “Higgins”, starting with the hippie protestor, Summer.
In Season 4, Episode 5, titled “Under a Blanket of Red,” a group of protestors (technically, environmentalists, though they’re portrayed more as people who just thinking killing animals is mean) ruin John Dutton’s day. The leader of the pack, Piper Perabo’s Summer Higgins, is arrested after getting into a scuffle during the protest, quickly bailed out and seduced by John (as evidenced by the fact that she’s wearing his shirt, and nothing else, after spending a night at the ranch) and later, ends up in jail again after being manipulated by Beth, who doesn’t like that her Dad had sex. To make an example out of Summer, the judge sentences her to some serious prison time — a fate even the all powerful John Dutton couldn’t make go away entirely.
Of course, this was before he was governor (and had the ability to hand out pardons or commute sentences). According to Perabo, Season 5 has more in store for the couple. “The love story is kicking into gear,” she said at a pre-show for The 28th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards pre-show following Season 4, adding “We’re turning up the heat.
Taylor Sheridan might be easy to take shots at, but I’ve been re-thinking his Yellowstone horsey-porn in light of his script-assist on the movie, Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve–a director I’ve recently binge-watched for an essay on his entire filmography I’m working on. And it’s because of this type of cultural analysis that I’m familiar with another character named Higgins, George Anthony Higgins to be specific, but his snuff-handle in the movie, 8MM, is “Machine”.
Speaking of machines and men in leather gimp-masks, I feel called by to point out that the leader of America’s WAR machine just made some recent and unnecessary headlines by approximating a fake prayer from Pulp Fiction. Amazing.
“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.”
Returning to Higgins, one of the many local books I have collected over the years places an important figure in the development of University culture, H.G. Merriam, directly on Higgins, arriving in Missoula by train, to ensure a pipeline to Rhodes Scholar elitism could be established and maintained:
H.G. stepped off a train at the depot at the north end of Higgins Avenue in 1919, ready to take on the chairmanship of the English department. He brought with him his wife, Doris, and two degrees from Oxford, where in 1904 he had been in the first class of American Rhodes Scholars.
He was surprised to find UM had sent no Rhodes Scholars to Oxford from 1905 to 1919, and became the secretary of the Montanan Rhodes Scholar Selection Committee. UM to this day has a strong presence among Rhodes Scholars, an effort H.G. Shepherded long past his retirement in 1954.
While trying to find the above quote I came across some history about the University of Montana and another glaring data point I had been previously totally oblivious to: the University of Montana, where I was a student on September 11th, 2001, first opened its academic doors on September 11th, 1895.
The students were the second human asset of the new University. At the opening exercises they numbered about 50, only five of them prepared for college work, but by the close of the academic year they numbered 135. All students must be thirteen years of age, “well grounded in the elements of an English education,” whatever that meant, and successful in an entrance test, which determined the degree of preparation. Here, then, they were, all 135 of them, young prankish, exuberant, serious, proud of being in a university. They were pioneers as their grandparents or parents had been. They too were making history.
These, then, were the assets of the University of Montana, material and human, as it opened its doors on that good day, September 11, 1895.
To bring this back around to the movie, 3 Days of the Condor, I pointed out in my original post from 2023 that this movie was the first, if not the only, major motion picture to use the Twin Towers as a location for filming.
Pretty damn interesting, considering what happened. For a little more context, here’s Sydney Pollack explaining his rationale for why he thought it made sense for the Twin Towers to be the location for CIA office space:
Yes, “perfect”, like well-crafted lines in a movie scene.
Boy does this stuff hit different in April, 2026.
Yeah, don’t get lost in those New York Streets, especially if you’re performing in a fly-fishing musical.
END SCENE!
The final Higgins for this post comes from StoryHouse, the film production company recently profiled by the New York Times. Before Sean Patrick Higgins starts scooping up public money, I think Missoula needs to get better acquainted with him and his dreams for our valley:
The owners of a production company, Story House, said they planned to open a film and television studio with multiple soundstages that would create more than 400 jobs in Missoula within six years and build an ecosystem robust enough that filmmaking talent there wouldn’t have to leave the state to find work.
The founders, James Brown III and Sean Patrick Higgins, had initially planned a similar venture in Wyoming, but legislative efforts to pass a film tax incentive in that state failed. So they moved their studio project northwest to Missoula to take advantage of Montana’s tax credits for film and television production.
State Representative Mark Thane, a Democrat who had championed the tax credits in what is called the MEDIA Act, said he welcomed Story House’s presence.
While Democrats like Mark Thane eagerly throw tax credits at this Yale-trained actor, I’d like to conclude this post with a 1981 quote from William Casey, the former Director of the CIA:
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Are we there yet, Billy?
Thanks for reading!