The Third Man is a 1949 British
film noirFilm noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, directed by
Carol ReedSir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
and starring
Joseph CottenJoseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
,
Alida ValliAlida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...
,
Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, and
Trevor HowardTrevor Howard , born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor.-Early life:...
. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score. The
screenplayA screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
was written by novelist Graham Greene, who subsequently published the
novellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
of the same name (which he had originally written as a preparation for the screenplay).
Anton KarasAnton Karas was a Viennese zither player, best known for his soundtrack to Carol Reed's The Third Man.-Early life:...
wrote and performed the score, which used only the
zitherThe zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
; its
title cut"The Third Man Theme" is an instrumental written and performed by Anton Karas for the soundtrack to the film The Third Man ....
topped the international music charts in 1950.
Plot
American
pulpPulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
WesternThe Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
writer Holly Martins arrives in Post-
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
seeking his childhood friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job. Martins discovers that Lime was killed by a car while crossing the street; at Lime's funeral, Martins meets two
British Army PoliceThe Royal Military Police is the corps of the British Army responsible for the policing of service personnel, and for providing a military police presence both in the UK, and whilst service personnel are deployed overseas on operations and exercises.Members of the RMP are generally known as...
: Sergeant Paine, a fan of Martins's books, and his superior, Major Calloway. Afterwards Martins is asked to give a lecture to a book club a few days later. He then meets a friend of Lime's, Baron Kurtz, who tells Martins that he and another friend Popescu, carried Lime to the side of the street after the accident, and before he died Lime asked them to take care of Martins, and of Lime's actress girlfriend, Anna.
Martins goes to see Anna, and becomes suspicious that Lime's death was not an accident. The porter at Lime's apartment building says Lime was killed immediately and that three men carried the body, not two.
Martins and Anna discover the police are searching her apartment. They confiscate a
forgedIdentity document forgery is the process by which identity documents issued by governing bodies are copied and/or modified by persons not authorized to create such documents or engage in such modifications, for the purpose of deceiving those who would view the documents about the identity or status...
passportA passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....
and detain her. The next evening Martins visits Lime's "medical advisor", Dr. Winkel, who says he arrived at the accident after Lime was dead, and only two men were there.
The porter offers to give Martins more information, but is murdered before Martins can see him. Escaping from a hostile crowd, Martins is taken to the book club. He makes a poor speech, but when Popescu asks about Martins's next book he says it will be called The Third Man, "a murder story" inspired by facts. Popescu says Martins should stick to fiction. Martins sees two thugs advancing towards him, and flees.
Calloway again advises Martins to leave Vienna: Martins refuses and demands Lime's death be investigated. Calloway reveals that Lime's
racketA racket is an illegal business, usually run as part of organized crime. Engaging in a racket is called racketeering.Several forms of racket exist. The best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes...
was stealing
penicillinPenicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....
from
military hospitalMilitary hospital is a hospital, which is generally located on a military base and is reserved for the use of military personnel, their dependents or other authorized users....
s, diluting it, and selling it on the black market, leading to many deaths. Martins, convinced, agrees to leave.
Martins learns that Anna too has been told about Lime's crimes and is about to be sent to the Russian sector. Leaving her apartment, Martins notices someone watching from a dark doorway. A shaft of light reveals Harry Lime, alive; Martins summons Calloway, but Lime has escaped through the
sewersA sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...
. The British police exhume Lime's coffin and discover the body is Joseph Harbin, an
orderlyA medical orderly , is a hospital attendant whose job consists of assisting medical and/or nursing staff with various nursing and/or medical interventions. These duties are classified as routine tasks involving no risk for the patient.- Job details :Orderlies are often utilized in various hospital...
in a military hospital who stole the penicillin for Lime.
The next day, Martins meets with Lime and they ride Vienna's
Ferris wheelA Ferris wheel is a nonbuilding structure consisting of a rotating upright wheel with passenger cars attached to the rim in such a way that as the wheel turns, the cars are kept upright, usually by gravity.Some of the largest and most modern Ferris wheels have cars mounted on...
, the Wiener Riesenrad. Lime obliquely threatens Martins, reveals the full extent of his ruthless callousness, and then reiterates his job offer before hurrying off.
Major Calloway then asks Martins to help capture Lime, and Martins agrees, asking for Anna's safe conduct out of Vienna in exchange, but when Anna learns this, she refuses to leave. Exasperated, Martins decides to go, but en route to the airport Calloway detours to show Martins children dying of
meningitisMeningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
that had been treated using Lime's diluted penicillin.
Lime arrives to rendezvous with Martins, but Anna warns him. He tries once again to escape using the sewer tunnels, but the police are there in force. Lime kills Sergeant Paine and is wounded by Major Calloway. Badly injured, Lime drags himself up a ladder to a street grating, but is unable to lift it. Martins then kills him using Paine's revolver, but only after Lime has told him "Yes" with a nod.
Martins attends Lime's second funeral. Afterwards he waits, hoping to speak to Anna, but she ignores him.
Cast
- Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
as Holly Martins
- Alida Valli
Alida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...
as Anna Schmidt
- Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Harry Lime
- Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard , born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor.-Early life:...
as Major Calloway
- Bernard Lee
John Bernard Lee was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the first eleven James Bond films.-Life and career:...
as Sgt. Paine
- Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...
as Crabbin
- Erich Ponto as Dr. Winkel
- Ernst Deutsch
Ernst Deutsch aka Ernest Dorian was an Austrian actor. In 1916 he played the protagonist in the world première of Walter Hasenclever's Expressionist play The Son in Dresden to great acclaim...
as 'Baron' Kurtz
- Siegfried Breuer
Siegfried Breuer was an Austrian stage and film actor and occasional film director and screenwriter.- Biography :...
as Popescu
- Paul Hörbiger
Paul Hörbiger was an Austrian theatre and film actor.-Life and work:Paul Hörbiger was born in Budapest, the son of Hans Hörbiger, an engineer who wrote Welteislehre on glacial cosmology, and elder brother of actor Attila Hörbiger. In 1902 the family returned to Vienna, while Paul attended the...
as Karl, Harry's Porter
- Hedwig Bleibtreu as Anna's Landlady
- Robert Brown as British Military Policeman in Sewer Chase
- Alexis Chesnakov as Brodsky
- Herbert Halbik as Hansl
- Paul Hardtmuth as the Hall Porter at Sacher's
- Geoffrey Keen
Geoffrey Keen was an English actor who appeared in supporting roles in many famous films.-Early life:Keen was born in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England, the son of stage actor Malcolm Keen. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School. He then joined the Little Repertory Theatre in Bristol for whom...
as British Military Policeman
- Eric Pohlmann
Eric Pohlmann was an Austrian theatre, film and television character actor.Born Erich Pollak in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, he was a classically trained actor who studied under the renowned director Max Reinhardt...
as Waiter at Smolka's
- Annie Rosar
Annie Rosar was an Austrian stage and film actress who is best remembered today for her appearances in many Austrian comedy films from the 1930s to the early 1960s...
as the Porter's Wife
- Joseph Cotten as the Narrator (pre-1999 US version)
- Carol Reed as the Narrator (pre-1999 UK, and all post-'99 versions)
Style
The atmospheric use of black-and-white expressionist
cinematographyCinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
by
Robert KraskerRobert Krasker, A.S.C. was a cinematographer, who worked on more than fifty films in his career.He was born in Perth, Australia andtravelled to England in 1932 via photographic studios in Paris and Dresden...
, with harsh
lightingModern stage lighting is a flexible tool in the production of theatre, dance, opera and other performance arts. Several different types of stage lighting instruments are used in the pursuit of the various principles or goals of lighting. Stage lighting has grown considerably in recent years...
and distorted camera angles, is a key feature of The Third Man. Combined with the unique theme music, 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 WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. The film's unusual camera angles, however, were not appreciated by all critics at the time.
C. A. LejeuneCaroline Alice Lejeune was a British writer, best known as the film critic of The Observer from 1928 to 1960.-Family:...
in
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
described Reed's "habit of printing his scenes askew, with floors sloping at a diagonal and close-ups deliriously tilted" as "most distracting". American director
William WylerWilliam Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
, a close friend of Reed's, sent him a
spirit levelA spirit level or bubble level is an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface ishorizontal or vertical . Different types of spirit levels may be used by carpenters, stonemasons, bricklayers, other building trades workers, surveyors, millwrights and other metalworkers, and in some...
, with a note saying, "Carol, next time you make a picture, just put it on top of the camera, will you?"
Through the years there was occasional speculation that Welles, rather than Reed, was the de facto director of The Third Man. Film scholar
Jonathan RosenbaumJonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
, in his 2007 book, Discovering Orson Welles, calls it a "popular misconception", although Rosenbaum did note that the film "began to echo the Wellesian theme of betrayed male friendship and certain related ideas from
Citizen KaneCitizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
." In the final analysis, Rosenbaum writes, Welles "didn’t direct anything in the picture; the basics of his shooting and editing style, its music and meaning, are plainly absent. Yet old myths die hard, and some viewers persist in believing otherwise." Welles himself fuelled this theory with an interview he gave in 1958, in which he said that he had had an important role in making The Third Man, but that it was a “delicate matter, because [he] wasn’t the producer”. However, he later admitted in a 1967 interview with
Peter BogdanovichPeter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
that his involvement was minimal: "It was Carol's picture", he said. However, Welles did contribute some of the film’s best-known dialogue. Bogdanovich also stated in the introduction to the DVD:
However, I think it’s important to note that the look of The Third Man—and, in fact, the whole film—would be unthinkable without Citizen Kane, The StrangerThe Stranger is an American film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young. The film was based on an Oscar-nominated screenplay written by Victor Trivas. Sam Spiegel was the film's producer, and the film's musical score is by Bronisław Kaper...
, and The Lady from ShanghaiThe Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
, all of which Orson made in the ’40sThe decade of the 1940s in film involved many significant films. Hundreds of full-length films were produced during the decade of the 1940s. The great actor Humphrey Bogart made his most memorable films in this decade. Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane was also released...
, and all of which preceded The Third Man. Carol Reed, I think, was definitely influenced by Orson Welles, the director, from the films he had made.
Differences between releases
As the original British release begins, the voice of director
Carol ReedSir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
, unnamed, is heard describing post-war Vienna from the point of view of a racketeer. The version shown in American cinemas replaced this with narration by Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins. This change was instituted by
David O. SelznickDavid O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
, who did not think American audiences would relate to the seedy tone of the original. In addition, eleven minutes of footage were cut. Today, Reed's original version appears on American
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s, in showings on
Turner Classic MoviesTurner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
, and in U.S. cinema releases, with the eleven minutes of footage restored. Both the Criterion Collection and Studio Canal DVD releases include a comparison of the two opening monologues.
Development
Before writing the screenplay, Graham Greene worked out the atmosphere, characterisation, 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, together with The Fallen Idol.
The narrator in the novella is Major Calloway, which gives the book a slightly different emphasis from that of the screenplay. A small portion of his narration is retained in a modified form at the very beginning of the film, the part in which (Reed's) voice-over declaims: "I never knew the old Vienna..."
Other differences include the nationality of both Holly and Harry; they are
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the book. Martins' first name is Rollo rather than Holly. Popescu's character is an American called Cooler. Crabbin was a single character in the novella. In the original draft of the screenplay, he was to be replaced by two characters, played by
Basil RadfordBasil Radford was an English character actor who featured in many British films of the 1930s and 1940s. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his first stage appearance in July 1924...
and
Naunton WayneNaunton Wayne , was a British character actor, born in Llanwonno, South Wales. He was educated at Clifton College....
, but ultimately in the film, as in the novella, Crabbin is a single character.
There is also a difference of ending. In the novella, 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 film. Anna does walk away from Harry'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 except that before they turned out of my sight her hand was through his arm — which is how a story usually begins. 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).
During the shooting of the film, the final scene was the subject of a dispute between Greene, who wanted the happy ending of the novella, and Selznick and Reed, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what they felt was an artificially happy note.
Principal photography
Six weeks of
principal photographythumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
was shot on location in Vienna, ending on 11 December 1948. Production then moved to the
Worton Hall StudiosIsleworth Studios, also known as Worton Hall Studios were located in Worton Road, Isleworth in the London Borough of Hounslow and this film studio mainly concentrated on commercial advertising films but was also the studio for a few noteworthy films, for example The African Queen. After closing...
in
IsleworthIsleworth is a small town of Saxon origin sited within the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane. Isleworth's original area of settlement, alongside the Thames, is known as...
and
SheppertonShepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
studios near London, and was completed in March 1949.
The scenes of Harry Lime in the sewer were shot on location or on sets built at
SheppertonShepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
, with most of the location shots using doubles for Welles. Reed, however, claimed that despite initial reluctance, Welles quickly became enthusiastic, and stayed in Vienna to finish the film. Water was sprayed on the cobbled streets to make them reflect the light at night.
Reception
In Austria, "local critics were underwhelmed" and the film ran for only a few weeks; William Cook, after his 2006 visit to an eight-room museum in Vienna dedicated to the film, wrote "In Britain it's a thriller about friendship and betrayal. In Vienna it's a tragedy about Austria's troubled relationship with its past."
Upon its release in Britain and America, the film received overwhelmingly positive reviews.
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine called the film "crammed with cinematic plums that would do the early Hitchcock proud—ingenious twists and turns of plot, subtle detail, full-bodied bit characters, atmospheric backgrounds that become an intrinsic part of the story, a deft commingling of the sinister with the ludicrous, the casual with the bizarre."
Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
, after a
prefatoryA preface is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...
qualification that the film was "designed [only] to excite and entertain", wrote that Reed "brilliantly packaged the whole bag of his cinematic tricks, his whole range of inventive genius for making the camera expound. His eminent gifts for compressing a wealth of suggestion in single shots, for building up agonized tension and popping surprises are fully exercised. His devilishly mischievous humor (sic) also runs lightly through the film, touching the darker depressions with little glints of the gay or macabre." One of the very rare exceptions was the British communist paper The Daily Worker of 3 September 1949 which complained that "no effort is spared to make the Soviet authorities as sinister and unsympathetic as possible."
Critics today have hailed the film as a masterpiece.
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
added the film to his "Great Movies" list and wrote, "Of all the movies that I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies."
Gene SiskelEugene Kal "Gene" Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted the popular review show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies from 1975 until his death....
remarked it as "exemplary piece of moviemaking, highlighting the ruins of WWII and juxtaposing it with the characters' own damaged histories".
James BerardinelliJames Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
has also praised the film, calling the film a "must-see" for lovers of film noir.
Score
The musical score was composed by
Anton KarasAnton Karas was a Viennese zither player, best known for his soundtrack to Carol Reed's The Third Man.-Early life:...
and played by him on the
zitherThe zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
. Before the production came to Vienna, Karas was an unknown wine bar performer. According to a November 1949
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine article:
- The picture demanded music appropriate to post-World War II Vienna, but director Reed had made up his mind to avoid schmalzy, heavily orchestrated waltzes. In Vienna one night Reed listened to a wine-garden zitherist named Anton Karas, [and] was fascinated by the jangling melancholy of his music.
Reed later brought Karas to London, where the musician spent six weeks working with Reed on the score. Decades later, film critic
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote, "Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's The Third Man?"
"
The Third Man Theme"The Third Man Theme" is an instrumental written and performed by Anton Karas for the soundtrack to the film The Third Man ....
" was released as a single in 1949/50 (Decca in the UK, London Records in the US). It became a best-seller—by November 1949, 300,000 records had been sold in Britain, with the teen-aged
Princess MargaretPrincess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon was the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II and the younger daughter of King George VI....
a reported fan. The exposure made Karas an international star, and the trailer for the film stated that "the famous musical score by Anton Karas" would have the audience "in a dither with his zither".
The comedian
Victor BorgeVictor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...
covered the theme on piano for his 1955 album Caught in the Act, and a version with a faster tempo and without the zither was featured on the 1965 album Going Places by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. The music is also used in a bar scene in the 2002
Vin DieselVin Diesel is an American actor, writer, director and producer. He became known in the early 2000s, appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including The Fast and the Furious and xXx...
action film
xXxXXX may refer to:* The number 30 in Roman numerals* The year 30 AD* Games of the XXX Olympiad, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England* Super Bowl XXX, held on January 28, 1996* A mark indicating "extra strong"* Alcoholic beverages...
.
Andy SambergDavid Andrew "Andy" Samberg is an American actor, comedian, rapper and writer best known as a member of the comedy group The Lonely Island and as a cast member on Saturday Night Live...
and
Akiva SchafferAkiva Schaffer is an American writer for Saturday Night Live, a film director, songwriter, and a member of The Lonely Island, a sketch-comedy troupe that first found success on the Internet, which includes SNL cast member Andy Samberg and SNL writer Jorma Taccone...
's comedy troupe
The Lonely IslandThe Lonely Island is an American comedy troupe composed of Akiva "Kiv" Schaffer, Jorma "Jorm" Taccone, and David Andrew "Andy" Samberg, best known for their comedic music. Originally from Berkeley, California, the group is currently based in New York City. The group broke out due to their...
used a sample of the theme song on the song "Stork Patrol". The theme also is used for the title sequence of "Ebert Presents At the Movies."
The Goon ShowThe Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
parodied the score several times when referring to spy, Vienna or war themes and featured by warping recognisable portions of the score using then new FX methods.
The "Swiss cuckoo clock" speech
In a famous scene, Lime meets with Martins on the Wiener Riesenrad, the large
Ferris wheelA Ferris wheel is a nonbuilding structure consisting of a rotating upright wheel with passenger cars attached to the rim in such a way that as the wheel turns, the cars are kept upright, usually by gravity.Some of the largest and most modern Ferris wheels have cars mounted on...
in the Prater amusement park. Looking down on the people below from his vantage point, Lime compares them to dots. Back on the ground, he notes:
You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
and the RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. In SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clockA cuckoo clock is a clock, typically pendulum-regulated, that strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo's call and typically has a mechanical cuckoo that emerges with each note...
.
This remark was added by Welles – in the published script, it is in a footnote. Greene wrote in a letter "What happened was that during the shooting of The Third Man it was found necessary for the timing to insert another sentence." Welles apparently said the lines came from "an old Hungarian play"; the painter Whistler, in a lecture on art from 1885 (published in Mr Whistler's 'Ten O'Clock [1888]), had said, "The Swiss in their mountains... What more worthy people!... yet, the perverse and scornful [goddess, Art] will have none of it, and the sons of patriots are left with the clock that turns the mill, and the sudden cuckoo, with difficulty restrained in its box! For this was
TellWilliam Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th century Swiss chronicle....
a hero! For this did
GesslerAlbrecht Gessler was a probably legendary Habsburg bailiff at Altdorf, whose brutal rule led to the William Tell rebellion and the eventual independence of the Swiss Confederacy....
die!" In This is Orson Welles (1993), Welles is quoted as saying "When the picture came out, the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they've never made any cuckoo clocks", as they are in fact German, native to the
Black ForestThe Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
. Writer
John McPheeJohn Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
also points out that during the period of time the Borgia flourished in Italy, Switzerland was "the most powerful and feared military force in Europe", and not the peacefully neutral country it is currently.
Awards and honours
The Third Man won the 1949 Grand Prix at the
Cannes Film FestivalThe 3rd Cannes Film Festival was held on September 2-17, 1949. No festival was held in 1948.- Jury :The entire jury for this festival were French.*Georges Huisman *Jules Romains *Mme...
, the British Academy Award for Best Film, and an
Academy Award for Best Black and White CinematographyThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
in 1950.
In 1999 the
British Film InstituteThe British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
selected The Third Man as the
best British film of the 20th centuryIn 1999 the British Film Institute surveyed 1000 people from the world of British film and television to produce the BFI 100 list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were 'culturally British'...
; five years later, the magazine
Total FilmTotal Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
ranked it fourth. The film also placed 57th on the
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's list of top American films in 1998, though the film's only American connection was its executive co-producer,
David O. SelznickDavid O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
. (The other two,
Sir Alexander KordaSir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
and
Carol ReedSir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
, were of Hungarian and British origin respectively.) In June 2008, the AFI revealed its "
10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. The Third Man was acknowledged as the fifth best film in the mystery genre. In 2005, viewers of BBC Television's
Newsnight ReviewNewsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
voted the film their fourth favourite of all time; it was the only film in the top five made prior to 1970. The "
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
" chose the film in the following categories:
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies - #57
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills - #75
- AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains:
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
- "In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
- Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
- 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
#5 mystery filmMystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...
In Vienna there is a 'Third Man Museum' dedicated to the film.
Copyright status
This film lapsed into
public domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in the United States when the copyright was not renewed after David Selznick's death. In 1996, the film's U.S. copyright protection was restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, and the Criterion Collection released a digitally restored
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
of the original British print of the film. In 2008 Criterion released a Blu-ray edition, now out of print, and in September 2010 Lions Gate reissued the film on Blu-ray.
Adaptations
The Third Man was adapted as a one-hour radio play on two broadcasts of
Lux Radio TheaterLux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...
, first on 9 April 1951 with Joseph Cotten, then on 8 February 1954 with
Ray MillandRay Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...
.
A British
radio dramaRadio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
series called The Adventures of Harry Lime, which was broadcast in the U.S. as The Lives of Harry Lime, centred on Lime's adventures, voiced by Welles, prior to his "death in Vienna". Fifty-two episodes were aired in 1951 and 1952, several of which Welles wrote, including "Ticket to Tangiers", which is included on the Criterion Collection and Studio Canal releases of the film. In addition, recordings of the 1952 episodes "Man of Mystery", "Murder on the Riviera" and "Blackmail is a Nasty Word" are included on the Criterion Collection DVD The Complete
Mr. ArkadinMr. Arkadin is a French-Spanish-Swiss coproduction film, written and directed by Orson Welles and shot in several Spanish locations, including Segovia, Valladolid and Madrid.Its history is convoluted...
.
A television series later used the film's title, theme music and the character name "Harry Lime", in which Lime was played by
Michael RennieMichael Rennie was an English film, television, and stage actor, perhaps best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, he appeared in over 50 other films since 1936, many with Jean Simmons and other...
. However, the Lime character here was a wealthy art dealer who behaved like
Robin HoodRobin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
, and had an associate, Bradford Webster, played by
Jonathan HarrisJonathan Harris was an American stage and film character actor. Two of his best-known roles were as the timid accountant Bradford Webster in the TV version of The Third Man, and the comic villain Dr. Zachary Smith, in the 1960s sci-fi television series, Lost in Space...
. The series was produced by the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and ran for 77 episodes between 1959 and 1965. It was syndicated in the United States.
External links