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.

Plot

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 a mildly successful 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 in several years, has been killed in an accident under mysterious circumstances just prior to Martins' arrival in Vienna. He finds that there was more to Lime than he knew and that he 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.

Alternate version

The version of the The Third Man shown in American theatres, though not the version that appears on American DVDs, emphasizes Holly Martins' point of view rather than a racketeer's as shown in the UK version, from which 11 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 re-recorded for the US release by Joseph Cotten (Holly Martins).

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 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 fight 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.

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 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 (1906 – 1985). 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.

Cast

Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins
Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt
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

Awards

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.

Adaptations and spin-offs

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.

Quote

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.)

Cultural references

A reference to The Third Man is made in episode 339, "Fluency," of the 15th season of the television series Law & Order. Executive Assisstant 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." White wrote the song "The Union Forever" as an homage to another Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane.

Common misconceptions

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). Although Harry Lime is arguably the central character of the film, Welles' on-screen time amounts to only ten minutes.
The tall and wide sewer shown in the film is in fact the tunnel of the Wien River, although some shots were also filmed in a London studio.

Copyright status

This film lapsed into the United States public domain when the copyright was not renewed after the death of producer David Selznick although 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.

External links

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