The Third Man

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Third Man
Directed by Carol Reed
Produced by Alexander Korda, David O. Selznick
Written by Graham Greene
Starring Orson Welles
Joseph Cotten
Alida Valli
Trevor Howard
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Bernard Lee
Distributed by British Lion Films (UK)
Release date(s) Flag of United Kingdom September 2, 1949
Flag of United States 2 January 1950
Running time 104 min.
Language English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Third Man (1949) is a British film noir directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was written by novelist Graham Greene. Greene wrote a novella of the same name in preparation for the screenplay, and this was published in 1950.

Contents

[edit] Plot

[edit] Overview

The story is set in what was then the post-war Austrian city of Vienna, just after the Second World War, when it was divided between the Allied powers of Britain, France, the USA and the USSR. The central character is pulp western author, Holly Martins, who is searching for an old friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him the opportunity to work with him in Vienna. The story, however, is told from the point of view of the British detective in Vienna who has been investigating Harry Lime's alleged racketeering.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the beginning of the film, Martins discovers that his old friend Harry Lime, whom he had not seen since before the war, has been killed in an accident under mysterious circumstances just prior to Martins' arrival in Vienna. The deeper he delves into Harry's death, the more Martins finds that there was more to Lime than he knew and that Harry has been accused of being a black market racketeer, trafficking in adulterated penicillin. Martins is told that Lime was struck by a truck while crossing a street. In all but one account, two of Lime's friends carried Lime's body off the street after the accident. All these eyewitnesses to the accident happen to be friends or associates of Lime, including the driver. Martins' investigation leads, however, to one eyewitness not associated with Lime who claims that there was a third man who helped carry Lime's body. It is this "third man" to whom the title of the film refers, and it is the revelation that this person is actually Lime himself carrying the corpse of his murdered co-racketeer Joseph Harbin which constitutes the twist of the story.

Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles
Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles

[edit] Alternate version

The original British release begins with an unnamed narrator (voiced by director Carol Reed) describing post-war Vienna from the point of view of a racketeer. The version shown in American theatres replaced this with narration by Holly Martins. This change was made by David O. Selznick, who did not think American audiences would relate to the seedy tone of the original.[1] In addition, eleven minutes were cut.[2] Today, Reed's original version now appears on American DVDs and in showings on Turner Classic Movies. (both the Criterion Collection and Studio Canal releases include a comparison of the two opening monologues.)

[edit] Adaptation of the source material

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Before writing the screenplay, Greene worked out the atmosphere, characterization and mood of the story by writing a novella. This was written purely to be used as a source text for the screenplay and was never intended to be read by the general public, although it was later published (alongside The Fallen Idol).

The narrator in the novella is Col. Calloway, a British policeman, which gives the book a slightly different emphasis from that of the screenplay. A small portion of his narration is retained in a modified form at the very beginning of the movie, the part in which a voice-over declaims: "I never knew the old Vienna..."

Other differences include the nationality of both Martins and Lime; they are English in the book. Martins' first name is Rollo rather than Holly. Popescu's character is an American called Cooler. The character of Crabbin was originally meant to be two characters, to be played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, who were an established comedy duo in films.

Perhaps the fundamental difference is the end of the novella, in which it is implied that Anna and Rollo (Holly) are about to begin a new life together, in stark contrast to the unmistakable snub by Anna that marks the end of the movie. Anna does walk away from Lime's grave in the book, but the text continues: "I watched him striding off on his overgrown legs after the girl. He caught her up and they walked side by side. I don't think he said a word to her: it was like the end of a story. He was a very bad shot and a very bad judge of character, but he had a way with Westerns (a trick of tension) and with girls (I wouldn't know what)." In some prints of the film, the last few seconds have been deleted to try to conceal the snub and manufacture the happy ending of the book.[citation needed] During the shooting of the movie, the final scene was the subject of a dispute between Selznick and Greene, who wanted the happy ending of the novella, and Reed, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what he felt was an artificially happy note.[citation needed]

[edit] Style

The atmospheric use of black and white expressionist cinematography (by Robert Krasker), with harsh lighting and distorted camera angles, is a key feature of The Third Man. Combined with the unique musical theme, seedy locations, and acclaimed performances from the cast, the style evokes the atmosphere of an exhausted, cynical post-war Vienna at the start of the Cold War.

The distinctive musical score was composed and played on the zither by Anton Karas. A single, "The Third Man Theme", released in 1950 (Decca in UK, London Records in USA) became a best-seller, and later an LP was released. Before the production came to Vienna, Karas was an unknown street performer. Reed fell in love with Karas' zither after hearing him play, and the exposure made Karas an international star after the movie was released.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Awards

The film won the 1949 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, a British Academy Award for Best Film, and an Academy Award for Best Black and White Cinematography in 1950.

The film was also voted the best British film of all time by the British Film Institute, while in 2004 the magazine Total Film named it the third greatest British film. The film also placed 57th on the American Film Institute's list of top American films, "100 Years... 100 Movies" in 1998, an accolade which is controversial because the film's only American connection was its executive co-producer, David O. Selznick; the other two, Sir Alexander Korda and Carol Reed, were British.

[edit] Adaptations and spin-offs

  • A radio drama series called The Lives of Harry Lime and centering on the adventures of Harry Lime (voiced by Welles) prior to his "death in Vienna" ran for a number of seasons. Welles also wrote a number of episodes, including "Ticket to Tangiers," which is included on the Criterion Collection and Studio Canal releases of the film.
  • A television series later used the film's title, theme music and the name "Harry Lime", played by Michael Rennie. However, the Lime character was a wealthy art-dealer who behaved like Robin Hood and had an associate called Bradford Webster played by Jonathan Harris. The series was produced by the BBC and ran for 77 episodes between 1959 and 1965 and was syndicated in the United States (see The Third Man TV series).

[edit] Quotation

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

In a famous scene, looking down upon the people beneath from his vantage point on top of the Riesenrad, the large Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park, Lime compares them to dots. Back on the ground, he makes the now famous remark:

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Greene has conceded that this remark was not his own invention, but rather Welles' contribution to the script. Welles himself admitted that he was inspired to his speech by a much smaller and older quote that implied the same. (The impact of Lime's statement is in some ways enhanced by the fact that the cuckoo clock is in fact a German invention, and the Swiss do not even have that to their credit. This fact, however, is not very well known.)

[edit] Common misconceptions

  • Many people erroneously believe that Welles directed the film himself, as the film's expressionistic photography is very reminiscent of his style. In interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Welles states that outside of acting, his only contribution was the 'cuckoo clock' speech (This is Orson Welles, p. 220).
  • The tall and wide sewer shown in the film is in fact the tunnel of the Wien River, although many shots were also filmed in a London studio. After one day's shooting Welles declined to film in the sewers and sets were built at Shepperton to finish the film.
  • The "third man" is commonly considered to be an elaborate MacGuffin, but this is not really the case if you stay true to the definition of a MacGuffin as a plot device, the exact nature of which is entirely irrelevant to the story. It is hardly of no relevance to the story that the third man carrying Harry Lime's corpse is Harry Lime himself.

[edit] Copyright status

This film lapsed into public domain in the United States when the copyright was not renewed after the death of producer David Selznick. In 1997, the movie was restored to copyright in accordance to the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, and the Criterion Collection released a digitally restored DVD of the original British print of the movie.

[edit] Cultural references

  • A reference to The Third Man is made in episode 339, "Fluency," of the 15th season of the television series Law & Order. Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy is cross-examining a racketeer who is partly to blame for a string of influenza-related deaths due to the racketeer's fake flu vaccine. McCoy wins a conviction when he reminds the defendant of the ferris wheel scene in The Third Man. McCoy paraphrases Harry Lime's question to his friend, Holly Martins: "Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those...dots stopped moving, forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you...calculate how many dots you could afford to spend; free of income tax, old man, free of income tax?"
  • The film was parodied in the Pinky and the Brain episode "The Third Mouse," including a reversal of the famous quote: "In Italy under the Borgias they had 30 years of murder, bloodshed, warfare and produced indigestible pasta, boring operas, and the Fiat. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The Swiss bank account, the best cheese in the world, and Heidi."
  • A self-announced Orson Welles admirer, and being a fan of the number 3, Jack White of the White Stripes adopted the nickname "The Third Man." This is evident in the song "Ball and Biscuit" from the album, Elephant. "It's quite possible that I'm your third man, girl." Also, his record company is called "Third Man Records" and his former upholstery shop was named "Third Man Upholstery."
  • The Berlin Noir trilogy of novels by Philip Kerr features numerous references to The Third Man, including one to a "Drittemann" (Third Man) film studio.
  • In the final episode of Series Two of Spooks an assassin is seen watching The Third Man before his murder. Later in the same episode, a scene takes place in the service tunnels of a London Underground station that is similar to the final scenes in the Viennese sewer system.
  • In cult Japanese book Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, the character of Shinji Mimura takes on the moniker 'the third man'. The Third Man is also the name of a hacking program used in the movie adaptation.
  • The PC game Grim Fandango contains a chase scene through a sewer reminiscent of the famous sequence from The Third Man and the character of the antagonist 'Hector LeMans', voiced by Jim Ward, is a homage to the character of Harry Lime.
  • In the Home Alone movies, one of the two thieves is named Harry Lime, though the character is nowhere near as intelligent as the original Lime.
  • The anime Jin-Roh is set in an exaggerated alternative history approximation of the co-policing situation and culminates with a copy of the iconic sewer chase sequence.
  • The plot of Rob Grant's novel Incompetence is loosely based on that of The Third Man, set in a dystopian future Europe. The main character, an undercover agent inspired by Holly Martins, gives his name variously as Harry Tequila, Harry Salt and Harry Pepper, and the characters Captain Zuccho and Klingferm are loosely based on Major Callaway and Harry Lime respectively.
  • Scenes from The Third Man ostensibly playing on television appeared in two movies: Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth and Mike Figgis's Leaving Las Vegas.
  • The film and Orson Welles' character Harry Lime are referenced several times in Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures.
  • The famous zither music is used for the bar scene in the 2002 film Triple X.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Drazen, Charles: "In Search of the Third Man", page 36. Limelight Editions, 1999
  2. ^ The Third Man at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] See also

  • A similar film to The Third Man is Reed's Odd Man Out (1947), a suspense film set in night-time Belfast.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
The Fallen Idol		 BAFTA Award for Best British Film
1951		 Succeeded by
The Blue Lamp
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/h/e/The_Third_Man_8099.html"