57. The Third Man


    (1949) directed by Carol Reed

Next: #56. M*A*S*H
Prev: #58. Fantasia


Um, we still seem to be a man short.
My Thoughts Before I Watched It

A fellow in a class I took a few years ago listed The Third Man as his favorite film of all time. I had never heard of it; to this day, I think it's amazing that it made this list, as obscure as it seemed to be. But I really wanted to see it. And so I did. Otherwise, this writeup would be pretty random, eh1?

The Premise

Hack novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) goes to postwar Vienna to meet his old friend, Harry Lime. He arrives just in time for Harry's funeral. But the stories of Harry's life and death don't quite add up, and Holly makes it a mission and a focus to find out what really happened.

Notes and Stuff
  • I feel I owe you, the paying customer (paying, of course, is meant in a metaphoric sense), a warning before we start. It seems that of movies I haven't seen before, the quantity and quality of my in-viewing notetaking varies inversely with my enjoyment of the movie. In non-pretentious terms, that means I have less to say about movies that I liked. I don't have much to say about The Third Man. If you want a refund (again, in a metaphoric sense), dial 9 on your phone and wait for an operator.
  • It's not often you see a zither player in the opening titles, right up there with the screenwriter and casting director, but we have one here (Anton Karas). It makes me suspect that this movie may have quite a bit of zitherin' in it.
  • Holly's most famous book is "The Oklahoma Kid". How he had the foresight to write Mickey Mantle's biography before The Mick's career took off is never quite explained.
  • Just by the fact that this movie takes place in Vienna, you know you're in for some fantastic visuals and some really weird people. Bill Bryson2, in his wonderful book Neither Here Nor There, sums it up with a quote from a travelling companion of his. "'Zat's zer whole trouble with Austria,' said Thomas with sudden passion in one of the few times I actually heard him speak. 'It's such er lovely country, but it's full of ****ing Austrians.'"
  • While we're on the subject, a friend and former coworker has told me of a peculiar Austrain trait to gloss over or deny shameful events in their history3. For example, when touring some duke's residence or some such, he asked the tour guide about rumors regarding the duke or whomever's sexual preference. The tour guide sputtered for a bit, then claimed that nothing like that could have ever happened here. Austrians also seem to regard the 1930s and 40s with a "Man, we were drunk and I can't remember what we did!" attitude. Ah, second-hand snap judgements of an entire country - there's nothing like it!
  • I'm coming for you next, Slovenia4.
  • In all seriousness, though, some of the people Holly meets are downright odd. The baron with his little dog (he so needs a monocle), the screaming landlady in Anna's flat (for my money, you haven't been screamed at until you've been screamed at by an old German lady), the corpulent and mysterious Romanian (I should put some parenthetical comment here to keep the trend, but I can't think of anything). Yeah. Put me on the next flight.
  • It's odd that it takes about 49 cops to search Anna's flat. I'll just pawn it off on Austrian eccentricity, I suppose.
  • I usually don't go on about stuff like this (you know, the actual freaking MOVIE), but the cinematography when Holly's being chased around town is awesome. Everybody, even the little kid who points Holly out to the angry mob (again, for my money, there's no angry mob like a German angry mob), casts a huge, ominous shadow. Very creepy.
  • And then there's the first appearance of Harry Lime, which everyone regards as one of the great character entrances in film history. And I won't argue with them. Very cool.
  • I want to like Harry. I really do. He's mysterious, he has great lines (like the dot monologue on the Ferris wheel, as well as the one quoted below), and he's just generally unconventional. But he's a crook. Well, nobody's perfect.

Best Line

Harry Lime: In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed -- but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Summary

This was a fascinating movie, definitely worth a look. Watching Holly try to play detective and descend into a game that's beyond him is riveting. Everyone's motivations are suspect. And it's incredibly filmed. And I had no idea zither music could be so evocative. And Harry is a cool guy. And it's a shame that I probably never would have watched it or known that much about it if it hadn't made the AFI list. But now you can't say that, so go rent it.

Cast

Orson Welles as the third man5, Joseph Cotten as the amateur sleuth, Alida Valli as the girl, Trevor Howard as the English guy, and Ernst Deutsch as the effeminate baron.

Footnotes

1. Boy! That would be a first.
2. If you haven't read him yet, you should.
3. That would never, for instance, happen here in America.
4. If you can think of a funnier country to put in here, let me know.
5. I assume he is the third man, anyway. I was never quite sure.