The Third Day (1965) User Reviews (16)

A really weak suspense thriller...

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 25 January 2023]

... in which the hero (Peppard) escapes from a car wreck and is suffering from the effects of amnesia. He soon realizes that he is a wealthy man who is involved in the possible sale of his company.

His father-in-law handed it over to him. He didn't give it to his son, who is an officer of the company and he has just been stricken with a full-on stroke. Will George Peppard manage to hold on to the company? Everbody seems to regard his amnesia as "a headache" that will go away. And what is the mystery of the car wreck, which has produced a dead female?

This poor excuse for a thriller generates very little suspense or excitement. And the device of weaving the dead woman (Sally Kellerman) into the action in order to fill in story gaps is bizarre, to say the least. Peppard and Ashley were fashioning themselves as a great screen team. But, unfortunately, it did not work out. The magic of their work in "The Carpetbaggers" has eluded them.

Way too melodramatic, but has its moments

[dfloro · 5/10 · 14 April 2020]

Good performances from both young actresses, Elizabeth Ashley (who was to become the second of Peppard's five wives) and Sally Kellerman (who was to create the iconic Miss Margaret "Hot 👄" Houlihan a few years later). Here, unlike in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," George plays a character not so far removed from his own IRL, i.e. an egotistical, womanizing ingrate maneuvering for control of his disabled father-in-law's company. It's only because almost all the other male characters, played by Roddy McDowell (his lying and conniving rival for the company), Robert Webber (the D.A.), and a supremely creepy (and thoroughly unfunny) Arte Johnson, are freakin' grotesque near-charicatures that Peppard comes out not smelling like a skunk in this one. Or at least, that's how I see it anyway. 😀

One Debuts, One Takes the Final Bow

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 2 July 2011]

The Third Day which is a nice suspenseful film, modeled somewhat on the Gregory Peck classic Mirage which is about an amnesia victim has George Peppard as the protagonist amnesia victim. It is both the debut film of Sally Kellerman and the farewell performance of Herbert Marshall.

It was quite a debut for Kellerman, she's seen only in flashback as a pleasure driven hedonist who is killed in automobile accident as the car they were driving in went off the road and into the Pacific Ocean. Peppard survives the crash, but it's left him an amnesiac and he struggles to pick up the pieces of his life.

Turns out he's married to the wealthy and socially prominent Elizabeth Ashley as he was then in real life and it was a case of marrying the boss's daughter as Peppard was in middle management of the town's main employer, a ceramics factory. But he's been driven from her and Kellerman has been more than willing to meet Peppard's needs. Ashley also has an upper crust twit brother in Roddy McDowell who's got an agenda all worked out for Peppard and that factory. McDowell and Kellerman are the best ones in the film.

Liz and Roddy's parents are Mona Washburne and Herbert Marshall. What was sad in this film was that Marshall spoke not a word and I wonder if his part was written that way because of his own health problems. He plays a stroke victim and he's catatonic. Because of that a lot of people like McDowell are playing all kinds of games with the business he is the head of. There's also a really ambitious new District Attorney played by Robert Webber who would like nothing better than to nail a prominent hide like Peppard's as that boost him to higher office.

It takes three days to finally sort all the pieces out hence the title The Third Day. It's a pretty good suspense drama that the cast does full justice to.

effective suspense piece

[didi-5 · 4 April 2004]

George Peppard plays a man accused of murdering his girlfriend (Sally Kellerman) in a car wreck which has left him unable to remember anything. This film takes his story and shows us flashbacks as well as interactions with his creepy brother Roddy MacDowall (excellent) and wife Elizabeth Ashley.

The film has its moments of suspense and involvement, particularly as the couple struggle to find some way to get past the accident and move on together. Peppard and Ashley are very good in the roles they have, and the movie on the whole is memorable. I'd recommend you see it if you like suspence thrillers with interesting endings, and if you can track it down.

"Rich boys learn to play, poor boys learn to fight."

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 20 August 2017]

Adaptation of Joseph Hayes' book about a "buffoon" who survives a horrible car crash but with amnesia; he's unsure of his wealth and position, which his wife's elderly aunt is happy to fill him in on (she acts like a scorecard for the confused man as well as the audience). Turns out he's a wealthy, ruthless boozer who holds the financial fate of a Northern California city's residents in his hands, being the owner of the local factory that he's considering selling off. He also had a woman in the car with him the day he drove off a mountain road, and if she dies he could be tried for homicide. Well-dressed but corny melodrama tries too hard to raise chills, such as when George Peppard sees something that jars his memory and Percy Faith's overly-fancy music swells up on the soundtrack like in a Hitchcock thriller. Roddy McDowall steals scenes as a nefarious relative (he's such a brittle prig, you half expect him to crack after Elizabeth Ashley slaps him). In her movie debut, Sally Kellerman has a showy flashback role, and Arte Johnson (pre-"Laugh-In") surprises with a serious performance as an unbalanced lounge pianist. The plot is slackly-handled by director Jack Smight. Under better circumstances, this might have been an exciting potboiler; as it is, the film's posh décor upstages the dull, soapy contrivances. *1/2 from ****

Not 100% logical...but enjoyable.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 September 2018]

The first portion of "The Third Day" is reminiscent of the film "Regarding Henry", as a nasty piece of work loses his memory...and the man does not like who he'd become. This newer, nicer version of Steve Mallory (George Peppard) doesn't like it one bit as he learns that he was a womanizer who neglected his wife, was more than willing to sell off the family business and put an entire town out of work and was a drunk. Later, he learns that the accident that affected his memory involved him and his mistress....and she's currently in the hospital and not expected to live. Add to that a bizarre husband of the victim (Arte Johnson) and a conniving assistant (Roddy McDowell) and you've got all the elements of a soap opera...which, in many ways, this film seems to be.

The first portion of the film is by far the best. Seeing Steve learning about his former nasty self and trying to finally do the right thing is wonderful to see. In fact, if the film had stayed there, it would have been better. But the thriller and soapy aspects make the film a bit less memorable. Overall, well worth seeing...though flawed.

By the way, Arte Johnson was a very strange choice, as his character was malevolent and dangerous....tough to picture on an actor who was slightly built and 5'4"...which made the big confrontation at the end a bit of a disappointment. Also, I am not sure if he was dubbed or not, but if that WAS Johnson's real singing voice, he sounded an awful lot like Mel Torme. I wonder if the voice really WAS Torme!

Good bad entertainment

[nickrogers1969 · 4/10 · 2 May 2015]

"The Third Day" is enjoyable to watch - for all the wrong reasons. As a murder mystery it is not exciting since it is too obvious who the bad guy is. A movie where the heroes of the story are the rich people is too strange. It's hard to feel any sympathy for them. Maybe I'm used to seeing rich people being portrayed as bad and decadent. (It's more fun that way!) In "The Third Day" they just seem too dull and I was hoping the story would have some twists in it to make it interesting but no, the ending is very pat.

It is a Hollywood studio product made just before American films got exciting again. Just a few years later a film like this would be deemed very old fashioned. The only time the makers of the film try to add some youthfulness is when Sally Kellerman all of a sudden does "the Frug", or some other dance, for no reason in front of the camera. Otherwise the movie is full of boring adults, some are of the early 60s rat pack kind - all of them acting in a stilted way.

This is a bad "good" film. You can tell that studio took it seriously. It doesn't work for several reasons: Elizabeth Ashley is in some bizarre Audrey Hepburn mode. Geoerge Peppard looks bored and puffy. The villain is obvious and overacting. Spoiler! - You never get to see the car crash or how the passengers dealt with the situation. George Peppard *tells* the camera what happened!

The best thing about this film are the magnificent surroundings and the cinematography. The landscapes and coastlines of the area that it was filmed in are astounding. But many parts of the movie are laughably bad. It's curious to see how the film tries to be sexy before the censorship codes fell. This is an extremely dated film, though that is what makes it entertaining!

Seen on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater only in 1972

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 21 January 2021]

1965's "The Third Day" boasts a fine cast and intriguing Hitchcock-like storyline from a recent novel by Joseph Hayes, author of "The Desperate Hours." George Peppard's Steve Mallory emerges from a river as disoriented as the audience (wide angle lensing for location shooting north of Bodega Bay), checking his ID to find out his name, a full fledged amnesiac who remembers nothing about himself, including how he escaped certain drowning while cafe singer Holly Mitchell (Sally Kellerman) apparently did not. It's quickly established that Mallory is supposed to be a pillar of society, marrying the daughter of Austin Parsons (Herbert Marshall), owner of the local ceramics factory whose employees number over 2000, yet has earned a reputation as a womanizing drunkard with a penchant for using his fists. Wife Alexandria (Elizabeth Ashley, soon to wed Peppard in real life) had been planning to walk out after years of being neglected but is now irresistibly drawn to her 'new' husband, but his greatest ally in the homestead is Aunt Catherine (Mona Washbourne), accepting of Mallory's behavior and filling in the details on his recent past, unlike her son Oliver (Roddy McDowall), eager to sell out the family business to the highest bidder but only if Steve is out of the way. Mallory's looming arrest for possible manslaughter or even murder hangs over his head like an albatross, and it takes 72 hours (hence the title) for everything to clear in his befuddled mind, aided by the suspicious piano player (Arte Johnson) who never let on that he was secretly married to the deceased Holly Mitchell. For a lengthy 2 hour running time the director commendably keeps a steady pace, although the slack climax proves too pat and unbelievable, winding everything up neat and tidy (the picture was quickly forgotten after a modest box office take). Inveterate scene stealer Roddy McDowall typically makes a strong impression as a reprehensible human being, while this was the final role for Herbert Marshall, almost undone with Vincent Price in 1958's "The Fly" as they struggled to avoid hysterics during its finale. Arte Johnson's small stature and established comic persona make him an unlikely villain, but the most unforgettable performance comes from Mona Washbourne, whose devastating putdown of crooked son Roddy McDowall makes for riveting stuff (Mona will be remembered by Peter Cushing fans as the school matriarch in Hammer's "The Brides of Dracula"). Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater paired this with 1958's "The 39 Steps" for an adults only broadcast in 1972, a natural for both Hitchcock suspense and playing the numbers.

like the premise but got lost over time

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 14 April 2020]

Steve Mallory (George Peppard) climbs out of the river and stumbles into a bar. He has no memories, not even his name but everybody seems to know him. Apparently, he had a car accident. He has to figure out the family relations and the mysterious situation.

For this to work, one must be compelled by Peppard's character. It certainly starts off with good intrigue but soon, there is an avalanche of confusing connections and relationships. I stop trying to figure out what's going on. It would have been useful for him to be paired with an informative companion. One expected him to start investigating the girl from the crash a lot earlier. I do like the premise but I lost interest over time.

Amnesia: the oldest soap opera trope ever.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 13 April 2024]

Another one of the big epic melodramas involving a very troubled wealthy family, and the scandals that erupt from their sins. There is an eccentric matriarch, an ailing patriarch, the long suffering but feisty heroine, the scheming black sheep son, and the in-law whose problems create havoc for everyone, except for the schemer who uses that to further their own ends. Also the other woman, the loyal family doctor and a dangerous stranger who could bring everything to the breaking point.

While these type of films had been around for a long time, improvements in motion picture technology made them bigger than ever, especially thanks to Cinemascope, more lavish sets, and the studio's desire to get audiences to go to the theater to see films rather than sit at home and watch television. Housewives would watch soap operas during the day and on occasion go to a movie like this, then go home and watch a prime time cereal like "Peyton Place".

Certainly Mona Washbourne's seemingly martini soaked matriarch is no Nancy Hughes or Bert Bauer, but still a wise old bird who has seen it all and rolls her eyes at the suggestion that she's naive to the greed and subterfuge. Husband Herbert Marshall is barely conscious after a stroke, and greedy son Roddy McDowell is scheming to make sure that he gets the power that he fears will go to George Peppard, the husband of Elizabeth Ashley, seemingly neglected.

The film starts with Peppard, amnesiac after a car accident, trying to put the pieces together that left a woman (Sally Kellerman) in a coma, and suspicions that they were having an affair. In a serious role, comic Arte Johnson is Kellerman's estranged husband (a lounge singer) who uses blackmail as threats to destroy the family, and takes Ashley to the scene of the accident to make his claim. By the time everything is resolved, this family will have drowned metaphorically, and other tragedies will erupt.

A real steamy novel by Joseph Hayes Is the source for this glamorous cinematic trash that's reminiscent of many films to have come before it. The dialogue is absolutely atrocious and the music melodramatic. Performances seem like something that was being playing to the third balcony of a broadway theater without the poetry of a Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee or Eugene O'Neill attached. After a while, you can't help but laugh at it because all of the twists and turns (especially on the road) make it seem like a parody. Jack Smight certainly has smighteth good taste with his direction of this one.

Scrambled family

[login2875 · 8/10 · 7 January 2016]

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.

Good, under-rated, under-seen suspenser.

[BobLib · 5 October 2000]

All but ignored when it came out in theaters, "The Third Day" is actually a good suspense film very much in the Hitchcock mode. It tells the story of a man accused of killing his mistress in a car accident, in which he was also injured. The problem is, the accident's left him an amnesiac, and, by the time the story is pieced together and the killer's identity revealed, both the protagonists and the audience have been through the emotional ringer.

The performances are all quite good, from then-husband and wife George Peppard and Elizabeth Ashley as the protagonist and his understanding wife, to Roddy MacDowall as Peppard's less-than-honest younger brother, who may know more about the case than he's letting on, to a young Sally Kellerman as the mistress (in flashback), to Dame Mona Washbourne and, in his last role, Herbert Marshall as Peppard and MacDowall's parents. The only casting that doesn't really ring true is a pre-"Laugh-In" Arte Johnson as a sleazy blackmailer. Perhaps it's because he's so thought of as a comic actor, but he just doesn't convince as a heavy.

It's been almost twenty years since I saw this film, but it's obviously made an indelible impression. It's an absolute "must" if you like good suspense.

Starring George Peppard!

[atkinsnedryart · 9/10 · 23 November 2020]

George Peppard was an MGM Star and in those days that meant being with the best and biggest studio of them all. Peppard joined MGM in 1959 and was given a leafing role in The Subterreans with Leslie Caron and another MGM star on the rise Jim Hutton. MGM had a powerful PR department and was represented to the Hollywood gossip columnists as the new Spencer Tracy! MGM even gave Peppard Tracy's bungalow on the then fabled lot. (Other stars groomed by Metro: Paula Prentiss as he new Jean Arthur!, Jim Hutton as a combination of Jack Lemmon and James Stewart and Yvette Mimieux as a Audrey Hepburn type. The biggest draw at the time was Richard Chamberlain who got 15,000 fan letters a week. MGM capitalized on Chamberlain's fame with a series of movies: Thunder of Drums with George Hamilton, Joy In The Morning with Ms. Mimieux.

I apologize for the long intro but Peppa the all starred had risen thru the ranks of Hollywood stars with big hits on loan out to Paramount for Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Carpetbaggers on loan out to Columbia for all star The Victors Peppard had several hits at his home studio Vincente Minnelli's great Home From The Hill, the all star John Ford-Henry Hathaway-George Marshall Cinerama all star --Greg Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, John Wayne-blockbuster HowThe West Was Won. MGM insisted on a Peppard film before his contract expired and Geoge Peppatd starred in the great all star Operation Crossbow with Sophia Loren, and Richrd Johnso who was married to Kim Novak at the time.n

George Peppard being an MGM contract star was promoted as the new Tracyand going thru a divorce from his wife Helen Davies ( the Mother of his 2 small children) took the first job that came along that paid him a superstar salary and that movie was The Third Day. Peppard gets absolute first billing and as his co star the exciting Elizabeth Ashley- his co star in The Carpetbaggers- who was at this time his wife.

Excellent Warner Bros,. production values but the film got only a fair distribution and as I recall Peppard's first and last film at WB.

Written and directed like a fifth rate T V show.

[robin-moss2 · 12 January 2005]

I was so surprised to find that other IMDb users admire this film that I had to declare my contempt for it.

Despite the distinguished names in the credits, both in front of and behind the camera, this is a really shoddy movie. Written and directed like a fifth-rate T V show, it spins a totally incredible story of a man who loses his memory after a car crash, and learns that he is widely disliked and despised, and is now suspected of murdering the local slut.

None of the characters behaves in a plausible way. For example, the wife receives a visit from a complete stranger. She goes downstairs to meet him, and although he acts and talks unusually and alarmingly, she nevertheless gets in his car and goes off with him without even knowing where they are going! The film is full of nonsense like that.

Robert Surtees' controlled use of light and Percy Faith's melodic and lushly orchestrated score are welcome, but do not overcome the movie's basic problems.

Perfeito

[jenniferkethleen · 10/10 · 24 November 2023]

George Peppard plays a man accused of murdering his girlfriend (Sally Kellerman) in a car wreck which has left him unable to remember anything. This film takes his story and shows us flashbacks as well as interactions with his creepy brother Roddy MacDowall (excellent) and wife Elizabeth Ashley.

The film has its moments of suspense and involvement, particularly as the couple struggle to find some way to get past the accident and move on together. Peppard and Ashley are very good in the roles they have, and the movie on the whole is memorable. I'd recommend you see it if you like suspence thrillers with interesting endings, and if you can track it down.

Location comments

[Wally_Kalbacken · 16 July 2002]

What caught my eye in this film is the last few sequences – which include a long chase along the Russian River in northern California. The rear projection looks feeble today – but that is the way it was in 1965. Arte Johnson is miscast – and that is underscored when, at the end of the chase, he and George Peppard haul out the fisticuffs in the surf. That final scene was filmed on the beach at Goat Rock State Park – just south of Jenner, California.