The Third Man

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This article is about a film noir. For the philosophical argument, see Third Man Argument.
The Third Man
Directed by Carol Reed
Produced by Alexander Korda, David O. Selznick
Written by Graham Greene
Starring Joseph Cotten
Alida Valli
Orson Welles
Trevor Howard
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Bernard Lee
Music by Anton Karas
Cinematography Robert Krasker
Editing by Oswald Hafenrichter
Distributed by British Lion Films (UK)
Release date(s) September 2, 1949 (UK)
2 January 1950 (USA)
Running time 104 min.
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Third Man (1949) is a British film noir directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Orson Welles. 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.

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

In 1999, the British Film Institute selected The Third Man as the best British film of the 20th century; five years later, the magazine Total Film ranked it fourth. 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[citation needed] 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. In 2005, viewers of BBC Television's Newsnight Review voted the film their fourth favourite of all time; it was the only film in the top five made prior to 1970.

Contents

[edit] Plot

[edit] Synopsis

The story is set in Austria's capital city, Vienna, just after the Second World War, when the city was divided into four zones controlled by the Allied powers of Great Britain, France, the USA, and the USSR. The central character is American pulp western author Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) who is seeking an old friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), who has offered him the opportunity to work with him in Vienna.

[edit] Details

Upon his arrival in Vienna, Martins heads to stay with his friend Harry Lime. When he arrives at Harry's apartment, Holly learns that Lime has been recently killed by a lorry while crossing the street. Shocked, Holly heads to the cemetery to attend Harry's funeral, where he meets a British military police officer, Major Calloway (Trevor Howard). After the services, Calloway gives Holly a lift to his hotel and advises the American to leave Vienna as he can do nothing more than get himself into trouble.

At the hotel, Holly agrees to speak to an assembly of members of the local book club and arranges a meeting with a friend of Harry's, Baron Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch). Holly meets the man in the Mozart Café to discuss Harry's death. Kurtz relates that he and Popescu, another friend of Harry's, had picked him up and brought him over to the side of the street, where Harry asked them to take care of Holly and Anna (Alida Valli), Harry's actress girlfriend. Kurtz tells Holly which theatre Anna works in, but advises against investigating.

Holly heads to Anna's theatre and arranges a meeting with her. During their conversation, Holly becomes suspicious and wonders if Harry's death had really been an accident. Later, the porter at Harry's apartment house tells Holly that there is no way that Harry could have been alive after being hit by the lorry, due to the way his neck was bent. He adds that he saw three men carry the body across the street, not two, as Baron Kurtz and Popescu had claimed. Holly tries to get the porter to tell his story to the police, but he refuses, becomes agitated, and asks Holly to leave.

Holly walks Anna back to her apartment, where the police are searching her room. When they find a forged passport they leave, taking Anna with them. Holly speaks with the other witnesses, but learns nothing new.

The next day, the porter asks Holly to meet him that night so he can give Holly more information. Holly convinces Anna to accompany him and translate. They arrive at the porter's apartment, only to find that he has been murdered. The crowd around the building suspects Holly and chases after him. Holly eludes capture and arrives at the book club meeting. There, he tries to field intellectual questions such as whether he uses the stream of consciousness technique and who has influenced his work. He stammers out a few brief answers, satisfying no one. Virtually everyone in the audience walks out on his presentation. After saying that his upcoming novel is called The Third Man and is inspired by actual facts, Holly flees when he notices two suspicious-looking men at the back of the hall. He eventually meets up with Calloway.

Calloway advises Holly to leave Vienna and, when Holly refuses, reveals the truth about Harry's racket. Calloway says that Harry stole penicillin from military hospitals and then sold it in diluted form, and in the process killed or injured many people. After seeing the evidence, Holly is convinced of Harry's crimes and agrees to leave Vienna. As he departs the police station, a Russian officer comes in and asks Calloway for Anna's passport so that he may arrest her despite Calloway's reluctance.

Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles
Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles

Holly heads back to Anna's apartment to say goodbye and discovers that she has also learned what Lime did. Leaving her apartment, Holly hears Anna's cat meow, looks across the darkened square, and barely discerns a man in the doorway, the cat rubbing against his legs. A moment later, a woman across the street opens her window to yell at Holly, spilling light onto the man in the doorway. It is Harry Lime, alive and well. Harry runs off around the corner and disappears, prompting Holly to summon Calloway, who determines that Harry has escaped into the sewers via a kiosk. Calloway realizes that Harry has used the sewer tunnels to move about the city undetected. The police then exhume Harry's coffin and find that another man, Joseph Harbin, has been buried in his place. (Harbin, an orderly in a military hospital, was thought to have stolen the penicillin.) In this way, Harry himself is revealed to be the third man who carried the body at his own staged death.

The next day, Holly meets with Harry on Vienna's celebrated Ferris wheel, the Riesenrad, in the Wurstelprater amusement park in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district. They talk and Harry offers to bring Holly in on his racket. Holly is disgusted by Harry's business and says so. In an effort to bring Holly over to his side, Harry compares the people moving on the ground far below to dots, and asks Holly if he really cares about them.

Calloway asks Holly to help capture Harry by luring him to a cafe in the International Zone where the police can apprehend him. Holly negotiates safe conduct for Anna out of Vienna, but Anna discovers the plot and refuses to leave. Holly reconsiders his involvement and tries to call it off, but Calloway takes him to a hospital and shows him children who died of meningitis after receiving Lime's under-strength penicillin. Holly again agrees to assist in the trap. When Harry arrives at the cafe, he evades capture but the police chase him into the sewers. Harry is eventually cornered and he opens fire on Sgt. Paine, killing him. Harry is then shot by Major Calloway, but manages to drag himself up a staircase and up to a grating. Holly then takes Sgt. Paine's gun and, after a moment of hesitation, kills his old friend. Holly attends Harry's second funeral. Afterwards, he waits in the road to speak with Anna, but she simply walks past him.

[edit] Differences between releases

As the original British release begins, an unnamed narrator (actually the voice of director Carol Reed) is heard 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

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 Major Calloway, a British military 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 film, the part in which (Reed's) voice-over declaims: "I never knew the old Vienna..."

Other differences include the nationality of both Holly and Harry; they are English in the book. Martins' first name is Rollo rather than Holly. Popescu's character is an American called Cooler.

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 Harry'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 film, the final scene was the subject of a dispute between Greene, who wanted the happy ending of the novella, and Selznick and Reed, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what they felt was an artificially happy note. This is one of the few areas where Reed and Selznick did not clash during the production.[citation needed]

[edit] Production

The film was shot on location in Vienna with additional scenes shot in England. The tall and wide sewer shown in the film is in fact the tunnel of the Wien River (Vienna 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 Studios to finish the film. There is a great deal of footage using doubles for Welles that were shot in the actual sewers[3]. Water was sprayed on the cobbled streets to make them reflect the light at night[3].

[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 theme music, 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 film's unusual camera angles, however, were not appreciated by all critics. C.A. Lejeune in The Observer described Reed's "habit of printing his scenes askew, with floors sloping at a diagonal and close-ups deliriously tilted" as "most distracting". Reputedly American director William Wyler, a close friend of Reed's, sent him a spirit level, with a note saying, "Carol, next time you make a picture, just put it on top of the camera, will you?".[citation needed]

[edit] Score

The distinctive musical score was composed by Anton Karas and played by him on the zither. Before the production came to Vienna, Karas was an unknown wine bar performer. Reed and Howard fell in love with Karas' zither music after hearing him play in a Viennese café. Karas agreed to record some of his compositions on a reel-to-reel tape machine that Reed set up in the bedroom of his hotel. "The Third Man Theme", was released as a single in 1950 (Decca in UK, London Records in USA). It became a best-seller and later an LP was released. The exposure made Karas an international star.[4] Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's 'The Third Man'?"[5]

The comedian Victor Borge later covered the theme on piano for his album Caught in the Act, and a version with a faster tempo and without the zither was featured on the album "Going Places" by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. The music is also used in a bar scene in the 2002 film Triple X.

[edit] Cast

Joseph Cotten in the starring role of Holly Martins, writer of cheap novels and friend of Harry Lime.
Joseph Cotten in the starring role of Holly Martins, writer of cheap novels and friend of Harry Lime.

[edit] Adaptations and spin-offs

A radio drama series called The Lives of Harry Lime (original British title: The Adventures of Harry Lime), centering on adventures of Harry Lime (voiced by Welles) prior to his "death in Vienna", comprising 52 episodes, was aired in 1951 and 1952. Welles wrote several of the episodes, including "Ticket to Tangiers," which is included on the Criterion Collection and Studio Canal releases of the film. In addition, recordings of the 1952 episodes "Man of Mystery", "Murder on the Riviera" and "Blackmail is a Nasty Word" are included on the Criterion Collection DVD The Complete Mr. Arkadin.

A television series later used the film's title, theme music and the character name "Harry Lime", in which Lime was played by Michael Rennie. However, the Lime character was a wealthy art dealer who behaved like Robin Hood, and had an associate, Bradford Webster (played by Jonathan Harris). The series was produced by the BBC and ran for 77 episodes between 1959 and 1965. It was syndicated in the United States.[6]

In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Harry Lime is revealed to be Bob Cherry, a British spy who (after his career as Lime) becomes the James Bond character "M".

The Rob Grant novel Incompetence is a humorous re-imagining of The Third Man set in a future United Europe in which no individual can be fired for incompetence.

[edit] The cuckoo clock speech

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, they had 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 from a Hungarian play. The cuckoo clock is in fact a German invention, not Swiss.

[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 film’s U.S. copyright protection was restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act,[citation needed] and the Criterion Collection released a digitally restored DVD of the original British print of the film.

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Drazin, Charles: "In Search of the Third Man", page 36. Limelight Editions, 1999
  2. ^ The Third Man at the Internet Movie Database
  3. ^ a b [1] BBC TV documentary Dec 2007 Shadowing the Third Man
  4. ^ "The Third Man" DVD review, Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies.
  5. ^ The Third Man review, Roger Ebert, December 8, 1996
  6. ^ The Third Man TV series.

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Great British Films, pp 134-136, Jerry Vermilye, 1978, Citadel Press, ISBN 080650661X
  • Drazin, Charles (2000). In Search of the Third Man. New York: Limelight Editions. ISBN 9780879102944. 
  • Moss, Robert (1987). The Films of Carol Reed. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231059848. 

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Preceded by
The Fallen Idol		 BAFTA Award for Best British Film
1951		 Succeeded by
The Blue Lamp