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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
The Third Man (1949)
During a brief, witty introduction you can access on the DVD, Peter Bogdonavich calls the late Sir Carol Reed’s The Third Man "the best non-auteur film ever made" and a "happy accident." Indeed, the film’s success comes from a few different sources: author Grahame Greene who supplied the screenplay; director Sir Carol Reed, whose visual style here (and in the equally brilliant Odd Man Out) seem to borrow from the visual lexicon of the film’s star, Orson Welles; Robert Krasker’s first rate photography; and the memorable music by zither player Anton Karas. A stunning film — if not the best non-auteur film — it is at least one of the most entertaining thrillers ever made. Joseph Cotton plays a Zane Grey-style Western author named Holly Martins. Martins arrives in post-war Vienna to meet his pal, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job. Unfortunately, when Martins arrives, Lime’s porter (Paul Horbiger) informs him that Lime had been struck down by a car and killed, his coffin taken away only minutes before. In shock, Martin goes to Harry’s funeral, where he meets Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) the British officer in charge of Vienna’s British sector. Calloway tells Martins that Lime was nothing more than a petty racketeer, involved with selling diluted penicillin on the black market, and demands that Martins leave Vienna. But when Calloway’s assistant, Sgt. Paine (played by Bernard Lee, the M of the James Bond films) identifies Martins as an author to local cultural liaison Mr. Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde- White), Martins is invited to stay as a lecturer. Martins decides to stay and investigate the whole suspicious mess. Martins is immediately contacted by Baron Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch), one of Harry’s friends. The Baron tells Martins that he and another man, a Romanian named Popescu (Siegfried Breuer) carried the body away from the scene of the accident, and his doctor, Dr. Winkle (Erich Ponto), arrived shortly after. Martins also goes to see actress Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) — Lime’s girlfriend — who like Martins, is not satisfied by anyone’s account of Harry’s death and wonders if it really was an accident. A return visit to Harry’s porter with Anna reveals that the porter saw three men carry the body from an upstairs window: the Baron, Popescu and a third man he couldn’t identify. He could have been, as the porter says to Martins, "just anybody". Anna, a Czech in Vienna with Lime-forged papers, soon finds herself about to be booted from the city by the Russian sector, while Martins, falling fast for her, continues to investigate. After he is chased down by Popescu and nearly killed, Martins is shown by Calloway all the evidence of Lime’s crimes. Unable to help Anna and unable to make her love him, Martins agrees to leave the city. Before he can, he sees Harry Lime himself (Welles, in one of his very best roles), appearing like a phantom on the wet Vienna street below Anna’s window. Martins informs Calloway of this sighting, prompting Calloway to have Lime’s coffin dug up, where they find one of Lime’s partners in crime buried in his place. Martins arranges for a meeting with Lime, who in one of the films’ most famous scenes, tells Martins of his cynical woldview (Welles delivers his famous "cuckoo clock" speech here), and Martins makes up his mind to help Calloway get Lime (and lose Anna in the process). While every element of the film is noteworthy, it was producer Alexander Korda’s coup to get Welles to play Lime, and once he makes his now famous entrance under the light of an open window, it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. (Welles went on to do the Harry Lime character in radio.) Welles was allowed to write some of his own dialogue here, and his "cuckoo clock" speech bristles with sardonic Wellesian wit. Much has been written about the climatic chase through the sewers, and as brilliant as it is, it was actually preceded — no less boldly- the year before in Afred L. Werker’s wonderful L.A. noir, He Walked by Night (also the seed from which Jack Webb’s Dragnet grew). The DVD issued by The Criterion Collection is definitive, boasting a beautifully restored print of the film that finally shows Krasker’s chiaroscuro camera work in its full glory (previous video prints looked washed out), and there are a slew of extra goodies: a radio play of the story with Jospeh Cotton and Evelyn Keyes, Graham Greene’s treatment of his screenplay (somewhat like a novelization), an alternate opening and newsreel footage of the actual "Canal Brigade" in Vienna used to track criminals in the sewer system as well as a wonderful clip of zither wizard Anton Karas himself performing the "Third Man Theme" in a London restaurant. This essential disc is the only way to see the film properly. Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com Want Pif to review your book? Nick Burton lives in Newport Beach, California. His fiction has appeared in many small press and web publications, including: Chronicles Of Fiction, Pauper, and of course Pif. |
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