The Third Man
The Third Man (
1949) is a
British film noir directed by
Carol Reed. 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.
Overview
The story is set in the war-torn Austrian city of
Vienna, just after the
Second World War, and is told from the point of view of an American
pulp western author, Holly Martins, who is searching for a college friend,
Harry Lime, who had offered him the opportunity to work with him in Vienna.
Synopsis
At the beginning of the film, Martins discovers that his old friend Harry Lime, whom he had not seen since before the war, has been killed in an accident under mysterious circumstances just prior to Martins' arrival in Vienna. The deeper he delves into Harry's death, the more Martins finds that there was more to Lime than he knew and that Harry has been accused of being a
black market racketeer,
trafficking in adulterated
penicillin. Martins is told that Lime was struck by a truck while crossing a street. On several accounts, two of Lime's friends carried Lime's body off the street after the accident. All eyewitnesses to the accident happen to be friends or associates of Lime, including the driver. Martins' investigation leads to another eyewitness not associated with Lime who claims that there was a
third man who helped carry Lime's body. It is this "third man", to whom the title of the film (which is essentially an elaborate
MacGuffin) refers.
|
Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles |
Alternate version
The version of the
The Third Man shown in American theatres emphasized Holly Martins' point of view rather than a racketeer's as shown in the UK version, from which eleven minutes were cut. This change was made by David O. Selznick, who did not think American audiences would relate to the seedy tone of the original. Most noticeably in the UK version, the opening monologue, spoken by Reed himself, was rerecorded for the US release by Joseph Cotten (Holly Martins). Reed's original version of
The Third Man appears on American
DVDs and in showings on
Turner Classic Movies.
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 Col. Calloway, a British policeman, which gives the book a slightly different emphasis to the screenplay. A small portion of his narration (given to Martins in the American release and to an unidentified, unseen and never-returned-to character voiced by Reed in the British release) is retained in a modified form at the very beginning of the movie, the part in which a voice-over declaims: "I never knew the old Vienna..."
Other differences include the nationality of both Martins and Lime; they are
English in the book. Martins' first name is Rollo rather than Holly. Popescu's character is an American called Cooler. The character of Crabbin was originally meant to be two characters, to be played by
Basil Radford and
Naunton Wayne, who were an established comedy duo in films.
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 Lime'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.
During the shooting of the movie, the final scene was the subject of a pronounced dispute between Selznick and Greene, on the side of keeping the ending of the novella, and Reed, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what he felt was an artificially happy note.
The atmospheric use of black and white
expressionist cinematography (by
Robert Krasker), with harsh
lighting and distorted camera angles, is a key feature of this rich and strange film. Combined with the unique musical theme, 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 distinctive musical score was composed and played on the
zither by
Anton Karas. A single, "The Third Man Theme", released in
1950 (Decca in UK, London Records in USA) became a best-seller, and later an
LP was released.
*
Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins
*
Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt (credited simply as "Valli")
*
Orson Welles as Harry Lime
*
Trevor Howard as Major Calloway
*
Wilfrid Hyde-White as Crabbin
*
Bernard Lee as Sgt. Paine
*
Erich Ponto as Dr. Winkel
*
Ernst Deutsch as 'Baron' Kurtz
*
Siegfried Breuer as Popescu
*
Paul Hoerbiger as the porter
*
Annie Rosar as the porter's wife
*
Hedwig Bleibtreu as Anna's landlady
*
Alexis Chesnakov as Brodsky
*
Herbert Halbik as Hansl
*
Paul Hardtmuth as the hall porter at Sacher's
The film won the
1949 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the
Cannes Film Festival, a
British Academy Award for Best Film, and an
Academy Award for Best Black and White Cinematography in
1950.
The film was also voted the best
British film of all time by the
British Film Institute, while in
2004 the
magazine Total Film named it the third greatest British film. 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 because the film's only American connection was its executive producer, David O. Selznick.
* A
radio drama series called
The Lives of Harry Lime and centering on the adventures of Harry Lime (voiced by Welles) prior to his "death in Vienna" ran for a number of seasons. Welles also wrote a number of episodes, including "Ticket to Tangiers," which is included on the
Criterion Collection release of the film.
* A television series later used the film's title, theme music and the name "Harry Lime", played by
Michael Rennie. However, the Lime character was a wealthy art-dealer who behaved like "
Robin Hood" and had an associate called Bradford Webster played by
Jonathan Harris. The series was produced by the
BBC and ran for 77 episodes between
1959 and
1965 and was syndicated in the
United States. See
Third Man TV series.
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, 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. (The impact of Lime's statement is in some ways enhanced by the fact that the cuckoo clock is in fact a
German invention, and the Swiss do not even have that to their credit. This fact, however, is not very well known.)
* A reference to
The Third Man is made in episode 339, "Fluency," of the 15th season of the television series
Law & Order. Executive Assistant District Attorney
Jack McCoy is cross-examining a racketeer who is partly to blame for a string of
influenza-related deaths due to the racketeer's fake flu vaccine. McCoy wins a conviction when he reminds the defendant of the ferris wheel scene in
The Third Man. McCoy paraphrases Harry Lime's question to his friend, Holly Martins: "Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those...
dots stopped moving, forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you...calculate how many dots you could afford to spend; free of income tax, old man, free of income tax?"
* The film was parodied in the
Pinky and the Brain episode "The Third Mouse".
* A self-announced
Orson Welles admirer, and being a fan of the number 3,
Jack White of the
White Stripes adopted the nickname "The Third Man." This is evident in the song "Ball and Biscuit" from the album,
Elephant. "It's quite possible that I'm your third man, girl." Also, his record company is called "Third Man Records."
* The
Berlin Noir trilogy of novels by
Philip Kerr features numerous references to
The Third Man, including one to a "Drittemann" (Third Man) film studio.
* Many people erroneously believe that Welles directed the film himself, as the film's
expressionistic photography is very reminiscent of his style. In interviews with
Peter Bogdanovich, Welles states that outside of acting, his only contribution was the 'cuckoo clock' speech (
This is Orson Welles, p. 220).
* The tall and wide sewer shown in the film is in fact the tunnel of the
Wien 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 to finish the film.
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 movie was restored to copyright in accordance to the
Uruguay Round Agreements Act, and the Criterion Collection released a digitally restored
DVD of the original British print of the movie.
* A similar film to
The Third Man is Reed's
Odd Man Out (1947), a suspense film set in night-time Belfast.
*
*
The Internet OTR Digest (Email Old-Time Radio Discussion list, discussing The Lives of Harry Lime and other OTR programs)*
Criterion Collection essay by Michael Wilmington*
Detailed essay describing the locations within the film*
BFI feature on Graham Greene's true-life models for the characters of Harry Lime and Holly Martins
