The Third Man (1949)
About This Movie
An American pulp novelist arrives in post war Vienna to take a job offered by an old friend, only to discover that the friend has died under mysterious circumstances, and his amateur investigation through the city's bombed out streets and shadowy sewers reveals that nothing and no one is what they seem. Carol Reed directed a film noir so perfectly realized that the city of Vienna, with its tilted camera angles and zither music, becomes the story's true protagonist.
Why It's a Classic
Orson Welles' Harry Lime appears for barely fifteen minutes, but his entrance, revealed by a cat and a shaft of light, is the most famous in cinema, and his cuckoo clock speech atop the Ferris wheel is one of the medium's great improvisations. Reed's use of Dutch angles (tilted camera) throughout the film creates a world that is literally off balance, a visual manifestation of a postwar Europe where moral certainty has collapsed along with the buildings. Robert Krasker's cinematography, which won the Academy Award, uses the wet cobblestones and deep shadows of Vienna to create images that look like expressionist paintings in motion. Joseph Cotten's Holly Martins is a wonderful creation: a naive American who writes cheap westerns about heroic gunfighters and discovers that his own hero is a monster profiting from the suffering of children. Anton Karas' zither score, which Reed discovered when he heard Karas playing in a Vienna beer hall, provides an unlikely musical backdrop that makes the darkness feel even more unsettling.
Fun Fact
Reed heard Anton Karas playing zither in a Viennese wine garden and was so taken with the instrument's sound that he brought Karas to London for eleven weeks to record the entire score. The 'Harry Lime Theme' became a massive international hit, spending eleven weeks at number one in the United States. Welles' famous cuckoo clock speech ('In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder...') was not in Graham Greene's screenplay; Welles wrote it himself on the day of filming. The sewer chase was filmed on location in Vienna's actual sewer system, and the actors spent weeks trudging through real sewage.
Parent Note
The film contains themes of black market profiteering, the dilution of penicillin leading to children's deaths (discussed but not shown), and a climactic chase and shooting in the sewers. There is mild romantic content and period appropriate drinking. In English with some German dialogue. Not rated (pre-MPAA). The moral ambiguity and postwar setting require some historical context, but the film is accessible to teens and up. A wonderful introduction to classic cinema.
Quick Facts
- Year
- 1949
- Type
- 🎬 Movie
- Category
- Mystery / Thriller
- Age Group
- Adults (Ages 18+)