Joe Frady is a determined reporter who often needs to defend his work from colleagues. After the assassination of a prominent U.S. senator, Frady begins to notice that reporters present during the assassination are dying mysteriously. After getting more involved in the case, Frady begins to realize that the assassination was part of a conspiracy somehow involving the Parallax Corporation, an enigmatic training institute. He then decides to enroll for the Parallax training himself to discover the truth.
Written by
Philip Brubaker
Plot Synopsis:
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Seattle, Washington. Senator Charles Carroll (William "Bill" Boyce), an independent senator, is holding a luncheon atop the Seattle Space Needle. Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), an alcoholic journalist, tries to gain entry to the luncheon, but is turned away. At the restaurant atop the Space Needle, Senator Carroll is holding a press conference when he is suddenly shot to death by an unseen assassin. Everyone looks around and sees a waiter holding a gun, and he is jumped by security guards. However, a second waiter (Bill McKinney), who also has a gun (and the real or second shooter) leaves unnoticed. The first waiter replies that he didn't do it, and he is chased over the roof of the building by guards, where he accidentally slips and falls off the roof to his death. The real assassin chuckles as he leaves the scene and reports to an unseen contact that the job is finished. Four months later, a commission holds a special public gathering and they conclude that the waiter, named Thomas Richard Lindern (Chuck Waters), acted alone and that there is no greater conspiracy to the assassination of Senator Carroll.

Three years later. Joe Frady, writing for a Portland, Oregon newspaper, sets himself up to get arrested to get a story on a major drug bust. Frady is bailed out of jail by his boss and editor Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn) who always complains that Frady is trying to create news rather than reporting it. Shortly thereafter, Frady is visited by Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), a Seattle newscaster and his former girlfriend, who tells them that she fears for her life. Lee tells Frady that someone is trying to kill her and that six other reporters at the luncheon have all died mysteriously during the past two years. Frady shrugs her off by telling her that she's just being paranoid. But a few days later, Lee is found dead in her apartment. Frady investigates and the coroner tells him that she apparently killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills, but Frady knows different.

Frady tells Rintels that there is a story brewing here about the events behind the Senator Carroll assassination, and Rintels reluctantly agrees to let Frady pursue his story. Frady meets with a former FBI agent (Kenneth Mars) who informs him that they are many methods that can be used to make someone's death look like an accident or suicide such as certain drugs which are fatal, but show up that a person's heart failed on them.

Frady travels to a small fishing village in upstate Washington where one of the witnesses to Carroll's assassination died. At the local bar, a rough deputy, named Red (Earl Hindman), tries to beat up Frady, but after a long and vicious fistfight, Frady wins, knocking out Deputy Red. The sheriff, L.D. Wicker (Kelly Thorsden), appears and applauds Frady for standing up to his loathsome deputy and he is rather friendly towards him. Frady asks the sheriff for information about the dead person, claiming to be an old friend.

Sheriff L.D. takes Frady to the spot where the Carroll witness died: a small creek right in front of a large dam. The sheriff explains that the man, Alan Bridges, was fishing when a dam sluice had opened up, releasing tons of water to relieve pressure on the dam as it does every few days and that that Bridges was washed away and drowned. Just then, a siren announces that the dam sluice is opening again. Suddenly, the sheriff pulls a gun on Frady explaining that he cannot let him get too close to what happened to Mr. Bridges. Frady and the sheriff struggle and are swept away by the wall of water that hits both of them. Frady grabs a shore rock and makes it ashore while the sheriff is swept away and drowns.

Taking Sheriff L.D.'s car, Frady goes to the sheriff's apartment to search it for evidence and finds test applications to the Parallax Corporation. Just then, Deputy Red arrives at the apartment looking for the sheriff and Frady runs. After a long and wild car case, Frady escapes from the deputy.

Returning to Portland, Frady tells Rintels what happened and shows him the copies of the Parallax Corporation application tests, and that there's something big going on. But Rintels refuses to believe Frady is onto something. Frady takes the test application to a psychology lab where the attending psychoanalyst believes that the tests are for measuring one's mental state and ability to commit crimes. Frady allows a lab worker, and a former prison convict who served time for murder, to take the test. Using the alias of "Richard Paley", Frady submits the finished test result to Parallax.

A few days later, Frady meets with Austin Tucker (William Daniels), a former Carroll aide, who has arrived in the country and claims that people are trying to kill him for Senator Carroll had many enemies from his past for his liberal views and work. Tucker and his aide/bodyguard take Frady out on a sailboat where he confides in Frady that there is indeed a wide conspiracy in the Carroll assassination and that Thomas Richard Lindern did not act alone and that a powerful corporation may have covered it up. Tucker shows photos that were taken of the luncheon on that day, and points to the second waiter in one of the photographs and asks Frady if he knows the man. Frady doesn't and asks why. Tucker tells Frady that it's probably nothing, but Tucker also explains that he cannot shake the feeling that the second waiter looks familiar. A few minutes later, the boat explodes from a bomb hidden in the cabin. Frady sitting on the bow of the boat jumps overboard, while Tucker and his aide, catching the full blast, are killed.

Frady meets with Rintels and tells him about what happened and Rintels agrees to help Frady with his story. Using his alias, Frady checks himself into a fleabag motel in downtown Los Angeles, and a few days later a certain 'Jack Younger' (Walter McGinn), claiming to be a representative of the Parallax Corporation, contacts Frady in his room and says that his aggressiveness (as shown on the test answers) makes him valuable for certain corporations. Younger asks Frady/Richard Paley to join the corporation for the 'special projects' division.

Frady goes to the Parallax offices in downtown L.A. and meets with Mr. Younger who shows him a special room where Frady is 'tested' with a series of brainwashing techniques with him being shown various photos and images of death and destruction as if to make him suitable for indoctrination. Frady becomes aware that this branch of the Parallax is a training ground for assassins.

As Frady is leaving the building for the day when his 'tests' are finished, he spots the second waiter from the Tucker photo talking to some businessmen. Frady follows the second waiter/assassin outside to his car and tails him driving around the city. The assassin switches cars with another person, and obtains a briefcase which he takes to the local airport.

The assassin checks himself on a plane to Chicago, and Frady checks himself on the same plane. The plane takes off, but the assassin does not board for he has apparently checked in his briefcase which has a bomb in it. On the plane, Frady sees that that assassin is nowhere to be found, and after seeing that a prominent senator on board, realizes that the plane must have a bomb on board. After trying to sneak a message on a restroom mirror, Frady anonymously passes a note on a napkin to a stewardess that a bomb is on board. The stewardess relays the news to the pilot who immediately returns the plane to Los Angeles. After everyone has disembarked, the plane explodes.

Frady returns to his seedy motel room to find Mr. Younger waiting for him and he informs Frady that Parallax have already had an offer of employment for Frady, but he immediately expresses suspicion as a background check made by Parallax on Frady showed that some of his references were false. Frady then makes up a new alias for Younger explaining that he's an alcoholic and lied on his background to land a job. Younger offers to look into it and again promises Frady that Parallax is a great opportunity for people like him, and then leaves.

Realizing that it will only be a matter of time before they discover his real identity, Frady secretly mails the Parallax test papers and an audiotape he made on a mini-tape recorder of his conversation with Younger to Rintels. Along with it is a note from Frady who explains that he may be in way over his head and that if anything were to happen to him, that Rintels should publish this information about Parallax and what they do on the sidelines of recruiting assassins to kill prominent officials who threaten or get too close to the corporation's nefarious plans. Rintels listens to the tape and finally realizes that Frady is onto something big. Rintels, who practically lives in his office and orders take-out food every day from a deli across the street, orders more food as he reviews more of the papers Frady has mailed to him. Just then, the deli delivery guy arrives with Rintels' latest food order. The delivery guy is the Parallax assassin in disguise. The next morning, Rintels is found dead by his employees in his office, dead from an apparent "heart attack" after he was poisoned. The evidence is gone and the audio tape has been erased.

In Los Angeles, Frady, unaware of Rintels' murder and that he is now on his own, gets his first assignment to meet with his new co-worker at a local hotel for their "assignments". Frady sneaks out of the planned meeting place and goes to Parallax's offices asking to meet with Mr. Younger, but is told that Younger is out. Frady spots the Parallax assassin and follows him into the hallways of the L.A. Convention Center. Mr. Younger is there with more Parallax businessmen/assassins where they are talking about their latest plans. Frady watches them from a distance as Mr. Younger leaves and the Parallax assassin and a few others go to the platforms above the floor of the convention hall.

Frady sees that down below Senator Hammond (Jim Davis), a prominent California senator, is rehearsing a speech he will give that night. Frady believes that the assassin is going to shoot the senator with a rifle that he loads and lies down on the walkway above the convention hall. Then, just as Senator Hammond is planning to leave before he makes his appearance, the assassin suddenly leaves, leaving Frady in hiding on the walkway, alone and locked in the area. Suddenly, shots ring out as one of the assassins shoots and kills Hammond with a second rifle from a concealed location, just as Hammond is riding in a golf cart out of the convention hall. Everyone looks up and around for the shooter, and sees Frady.... standing on the plank way above them near the unused rifle. THEY THINK HE DID IT!!!! Frady realizes (way too late) that he's been set up! Frady hides under the plank way as three Parallax security guards/assassins show up looking for him. When police sirens are heard, the three assassins flee, leaving the door to the exit wide open. After a few minutes, Frady tries to run for the exit, when the assassin appears as a menacing silhouette in the doorway (anticipating that Frady would do just that) and guns him down, and thus announces that they got the shooter.

Several months later, a second congressional commission is held where the commissioner members (pompous and easily fooled) report that Frady had blamed Senator Hammond for the Carroll assassination and had sought revenge. Once again for apparently the countless time, the Parallax Corporation gets away with it when the commission rules that there is no conspiracy in the Hammond assassination and the Parallax name is not mentioned at all. Frady was the lone assassin. Case closed.

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