The Third Day is a good film, with good actors. But the reviewers seem not to have seen the movie. All assume that Roddy McDowall plays the brother of the Peppard character. Quite a trick, since Peppard plays the only main character not of the wealthy Parsons family. Who is Oliver Parsons, the character played by Roddy McDowall? He is the first cousin of Elizabeth Ashley's character, herself the only child of the Parsons patriarch (Herbert Marshall). Oliver's father is the deceased younger brother of the patriarch; Mona Washbourne plays the widow, Oliver's mother. Now that the patriarch is incapacitated by a stroke, who will get control of the company which has made the Parsons family rich? Oliver, the patriarch's nephew and closest male relative by blood, assumes it will be he, and already holds meetings of the board and sits at the head of the Parsons' dining table. But Peppard has married the boss's daughter. He is popular with the employees and wishes to revamp the company into the maker of modern parts using ceramics rather than ceramic figures long out of fashion. Oliver wants to sell off the company to a conglomerate looking for a tax write-off with no thought of the employees whose jobs the patriarch's son- in-law wishes to save. The audience will now know whom to favor. But the mysterious car accident throws into confusion the purposes of the patriarch's daughter and son-in-law.
Without this knowledge of the Parsons family, the plot makes no sense. The joking demeanor between cousins, Oliver's mother berating her son for unprincipled ambition, the politics of the dining table, the police chief's pursuit of the son-in-law--all and most of the rest of the tale disappear into the reviewers' ignorance. Ashley and McDowall play brilliantly the two most interesting characters, who have survived together from childhood the Parsons politik and know each other very well. But it is Oliver's, and McDowall 's, movie. What does he know about the car accident, if anything? Almost every DVD box has a summary with at least one mistake in it, and a big one. Reviewers of The Third Day top this by mistaking the structure of the entire family whose machinations form the what, who, and why of the tale. How this happens, who can say? Too many popcorn breaks? The family relationships are emphasized in the dynamics of every scene in which two or more of the Parsons dynasty appear. Who is the villain, and in what does the villainy consist? Ashley's finest speech locates the answers in what else? Family values, and valuables.
Without this knowledge of the Parsons family, the plot makes no sense. The joking demeanor between cousins, Oliver's mother berating her son for unprincipled ambition, the politics of the dining table, the police chief's pursuit of the son-in-law--all and most of the rest of the tale disappear into the reviewers' ignorance. Ashley and McDowall play brilliantly the two most interesting characters, who have survived together from childhood the Parsons politik and know each other very well. But it is Oliver's, and McDowall 's, movie. What does he know about the car accident, if anything? Almost every DVD box has a summary with at least one mistake in it, and a big one. Reviewers of The Third Day top this by mistaking the structure of the entire family whose machinations form the what, who, and why of the tale. How this happens, who can say? Too many popcorn breaks? The family relationships are emphasized in the dynamics of every scene in which two or more of the Parsons dynasty appear. Who is the villain, and in what does the villainy consist? Ashley's finest speech locates the answers in what else? Family values, and valuables.