"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!

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.

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.

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.