Talk:The Third Man

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[edit] High

Acadamy award winner, classic film noir, Andman8 02:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Novella

I have to dispute the opening paragraph. Graham Greene wrote the novella (it's not a novel) "The Third Man" first, not the screenplay. He did this to help him establish atmosphere and tone, since he found that the format of the screenplay didn't establish these very effectively. Then he wrote the screenplay based on the novella. The novella was not intended for publication, but it was subsequently published, with a preface by the author explaining how he came to write the novella.

I've read the novella, and it differs in many important respects from the film. The main character is called Rollo, not Holly, and he and Harry Lime are English. Calloway is the narrator, which gives it a different emphasis from the film. The ending is completely different and far more conventional than the much superior end of the film.

== I seen the page has been revamped since I wrote the note above, but it still claims that Greene later wrote a novel based on the screenplay. This is flat-out wrong. I may edit the page if this remains.

See this site: http://www.filmforum.com/making3rdman.html Especially this part: >> The Novella

In his preface to the The Third Man novella (in print from Penguin Books since 1949), Graham Greene wrote, "My film story, The Third Man, was never written to be read but only to be seen... For me it is impossible to write a film play without first writing a story. A film depends on more than plot; it depends on a certain measure of characterization, on mood and atmosphere, and these seem impossible to capture for the first time in the dull shorthand of a conventional treatment. I must have the sense of more material than I need to draw on (though the full-length novel usually contains too much). The Third Man, therefore, though never intended for publication, had to start as a story rather than as a treatment before I began working on what seemed the interminable transformations from one screenplay to another." <<

It is the story treatment (the novella) that was turned into the screenplay. It was never revised to incorporate the amendments that occurred during its transformation into a screenplay.

I made some changes recently and merely tried to preserve the information the was previously there. If there were mistakes here a week ago, they're still present now. Since you have specific information you can contribute, you should go ahead and edit the article itself. --MarkSweep 12:18, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Fair enough. Will do, thanks!

[edit] Proposed rewrite

I'm proposing to rewrite/amplify the 'Third Man' article substantially. I believe there are more useful details to be included about the writing, direction and production of the film.

I am a bit doubtful about the initial description as a 'film noir', although it may fit into this broad category, I suggest moving this description to later in the article. Similarly, Holly Martins was a writer of 'western' fiction - not 'pulp', as I would understand it. I'll also write short filmographies of Alida Valli and Wilfred Hyde-White and link to those - as well as Anton Karas.

Any comments or suggestions, please get in touch on my Talk page. Bruce, aka Agendum | Talk 15:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please, go right ahead and make whatever changes you think are necessary. Thanks for mentioning it here first; however, as the article is not about a controversial topic and there are no disputes going on, this is not strictly necessary. Just be bold!
Regarding film noir, I think the film fits quite well into that fuzzy category: the cinematography is about as "noir" as it gets, but the plot elements are also there: uninvolved outsider gets gradually and reluctantly drawn into an existing conflict; at one point the protagonist is accused of a crime he didn't commit; and you can check off almost all of the themes and clichés listed in the film noir article: murder/crime, infidelity, jealousy, corruption, betrayal, hopeless fatalism; disillusioned males and a femme fatale; people trapped in a situation they did not want; etc.
I don't think Anna classifies as a femme fatale at all, but I would still agree that The Third Man fits into film noir. ~ Dancemotron 01:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Re "Western" vs. "pulp": it's not necessarily a contradiction, as Martins seems to write the kinds of Westerns that might be published in pulp magazines. See also Western fiction, which discusses this sort of connection. I agree that "Western" should be mentioned prominently when describing Martins' occupation as a writer. --MarkSweep 19:19, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Don't make too light of the genre Holly Martins was given by Graham Greene and Carol Reed. The invented titles, the gaudy bookjacket of the novel carried by Kurtz--all are to set a tone familiar to people in the late 50's that has been lost today. "Pulp" aptly describes it for modern audiences, and "westerns" is absolutely essential. There was a certain style to pulp westerns--I have a number of preserved paperbacks--and the language of them might be described as baroque or even roccoco. Not what you'd expect if you've read Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. Two of my favorite scenes in TTM come when Holly drunkenly corrects himself to mock Calloway and says "Raunch" for "Ranch", and when Kurtz obsequiously shows Holly the cover of his copy of "The Oklahoma Kid." Let it not be said that Reed did not have a sense of humnor in this film.--Buckboard 04:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who is The Third Man?

I have to dispute the statement under "common misconceptions" that it was actually Harbin who was The Third Man - as I (and almost everyone else, I believe) saw it, Lime was indeed the Third Man. The Three Men in question were those who carried the body off the road - this body was not Lime's, it was Harbin's, therefore he could not have been one of the three. Presumably, Kurtz, Popescu, Harbin and Lime were all together, and Lime pushed Harbin in front of the car. The three of them then moved the body, and Lime then made himself scarce, and WInkel shows up seconds afterwards to formally identify the body as Lime.

I'm prepared to admit I'm wrong, but it seems so likely that I have trouble believing that Lime was uninjured by the car, and thatHarbin was still alive at the time, and only got murdered and buried in Harry's place later on.

Normally, I might follow wiki procedure and just edit it myself, but as MarkSweep added that section, and has put so much effort into the page, I thought I'd challenge it here first. --MockTurtle 10:35, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll have to watch it again to be sure, but here's what I remember happening. The superintendent (Hoerbiger) saw three men carry Lime's body off the street after the "accident", which he admits he didn't witness (in fact, there are no independent eyewitnesses, so it's not clear that anyone was injured at all). As far as the superintendent knows, Lime was fatally hurt in the accident and died soon after. He knew Lime personally and identified the body. So there is no doubt that in the scene that played out in front of the superintendent, Lime was the "victim" and Kurtz, Popescu plus a "third man" carried Lime off the street. The police also knew Lime, so presumably Winkel's role was to issue a false death certificate, not to falsely identify the body as Lime's. Also notice the uncertainty about the exact time of death. Even if that's not what happened and it was Harbin who go shoved into the street, was hit by the truck, and died, it's still the case that as far as Martins, the superintendent, and the viewer are concerned, at least initially, it was Lime who died and Harbin was the third person to help carry his body. I believe the scene when Martins talks to the superintendent is the first time the words "third man" are uttered in the entire movie, after which Martins begins to look for that third man. --MarkSweep 13:53, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'll have to see it again too, so I can be clearer. However, I'd always assumed the superintendant was mistaken, that he hadn't seen the body was Lime for certain, but merely assumed that it must have been him after he heard Lime was dead. He was watching from some distance, after all, and his eyes probably weren't what they used to be.
More importantly, if Harbin was the third man, why would the others pretend he wasn't on the scene? He was known as an associate of Lime, and had not been seen for a while either way, so I don't think it would have made it any more suspicious if the authorities knew he was there. --MockTurtle 18:18, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I was a bit nonplussed by that statement to the effect that Harry Lime was not the third man, but I wasn't sure about it. So I went to the cinema and saw the film (one of the advantages of living in Vienna!), and I've since read the book. It is clearly implied (although never stated outright) that a third men helped to carry the body after the "accident", and since the body was not Harry's, and Kurtz and Popescu are the first and second men, Lime (perhaps pretending to be Harbin or someone else) must have been the third man who carried the body of Harbin, (but which was claimed to be Lime's). The witness didn't see any faces, but was told (wrongly) by others that Harry Lime had died, and so he reasonably assumed that the body he saw was Harry's. He did, however, see the right number of people. Martins then seeks the third man, and is naturally surprised when he discovers it to have been Harry Lime himself. One could interpret it as "the third man apart from Harry and the driver who was present at the accident", in which case it would refer to Harbin, but that seems an unlikely interpretation to me. --Stemonitis 11:37, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Having also seen the film recently, its clear that Lime is the the third man and that its Harbin's body. True, the film makes the viewer work this out for themselves rather than have one of the characters explicitly say so. But if he wasn't then the plot simply doesn't make sense. Besides, I can't believe Greene, a writer who clearly cared about plot, would double-bluff an audience and leave them deliberatly confused in this way. Jihg 17:08, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
I just finished watching the film, and I agree that it's pretty obvious. The shock for Holly and for the audience is that Lime himself is the third man. We don't know what the porter saw, because he was murdered before he could tell Holly the whole truth. He just didn't want to get involved (which actually makes more sense if he in fact knew that Lime was alive from the beginning). The body was Harbin, the third man carrying him was Lime. Ibis3 20:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The statement discussed here seem to have both come and gone since I was here last. Was it a separate paragraph under "Common misconceptions" stating that Harbin was actually the third man? I was not aware that there was any confusion on this point. Kurtz, Popescu and Lime wanted Harbin dead, staged the accident, and simultaneously gave Lime an opportunity to disappear. It is never said explicitly, put I always thought it quite obvious. I had even written a couple of lines explaining the meaning of the "third man" at the end of the synopsis (which apparently did not survive the extensive rewrite of that section), and would recommend such a clarification be put back in. The only mentioning of Harry being the third man is currently the paragraph about this not being a MacGuffin (under "Common misconceptions"). -- Andreas Karlsson 23 August 2007

[edit] cult film

this is not a cult film; any film listed in AFI's top 100 list can't be considered a film that has recieved little recognition. I'm removing it from this category presently. Shaggorama 10:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


..Cult recognition really has nothing to do with AFI's continued attempts to appear less mainstream...

Added a couple more entries on the end of the 'Cultural references' section, (sorry about poor sentence stucture, missing linkage and wrong quotation marks(sorry but am in too much of a hurry to do that more tidy).

How do you define "cult-film" anyway? ☺ Spiby ☻ 14:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Documentary

I saw a documentary on the making of the this film, in which it was stated that Welles doesn't appear except as a shadow until late in the film, because he was trying to renegotiate his pay, and refused to film as a tactic. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the documentary. Ajb 17:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The documentary you saw was probably "Shadowing the Third Man", a 2005 BBC Arena production, directed by Frederick Baker; see BBC program notes, and this Article by F. Baker on the documentary. Among other matters, it revealed that the grave allegedly given to Harry Lime [=light green] is in reality occupied by the body of Herman Grün - German for Green[e]. Michael Bednarek 09:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

So is this film public domain? It's in the public domain movie category. Theshibboleth 02:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Karas and "Harry Lime Theme"

Along with a little extra detail, I put in "and Howard" to the part that refers to the discovery of Karas and "falling in love with his music"(is there a less assuming way of saying that btw?). This is because both Reed and Howard have claimed to be the first person who went to the cafe he was playing at first and fetched the other person. I know a two word edit isn't normally worthy of mention, but it involves conflicting accounts of events and could seem incorrect to someone only aware of one persons account. SemperFideliS81 12:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Synopsis

I did a major reworking of the synposis and then it was erased and replaced with a much shorter summary. If it's not cool with Wikipedia to have such a long summary, I'd be happy to revert it, but I think it's much better this way. Either way, I'd like to know what's what. Dancemotron 22:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


It's way shorter now, hooray! 129.237.168.172 04:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drug dilution case

In the 90s-2000s, a Kansas city pharmacist, Robert Courtney, actually carried out Harry Lime's scheme, causing the deaths of many cancer patients.

[edit] Law and Order Quote is wrong

The quote of Jack McCoy referencing the Third Man was really off. I've had trouble finding it online, but I realized this after watching it tonight on my Tivo. Too bad I deleted the episode before noticing the discrepency.

[edit] 1950 film?

According to the trailer, this is the "First Great Picture of 1950"[1] but why is it categorised as a 1949 film? Reginmund 00:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Because that's the American trailer. It came out in Britain in 1949, but the US had to wait until 1950.[2] Cop 663 01:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)