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Rating: 9.5 stars

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NWI

All movies seen on 02/06/2011

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The Third Man (1949)

Directed by Carol Reed

Crime | Film Noir

Most recently watched by sleestakk

Overview

In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover, Anna.

Rated NR | Length 105 minutes

Actors

Joseph Cotten | Alida Valli | Trevor Howard | Orson Welles | Paul Hörbiger | Ernst Deutsch | Erich Ponto | Siegfried Breuer | Hedwig Bleibtreu | Bernard Lee | Wilfrid Hyde-White | Alexis Chesnakov | Thomas Gallagher | Herbert Halbik | Hannah Norbert | Eric Pohlmann | Carol Reed | Annie Rosar | Frederick Schrecker | Hugo Schuster | Karel Stepanek | Brother Theodore | Jenny Werner | Reed De Rouen | Geoffrey Keen | Robert Brown

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

I’ve seen The Third Man before, but it’s been a while, so a rewatch was in order.

Filmed mostly in real post-war Vienna in 1949, this movie is a tour-de-force of cinematography. The night and sewer scenes are especially sinister and beautiful.

Orson Welles does a chillingly excellent turn as the amoral Harry Lime, one of his best performances.

I can’t help but see this movie as an indictment of America, both in the amoral, anything for a dollar, inhuman scheming of Welles’ Harry Lime and in the bumbling, making things worse by claiming the path of righteousness, moral outrage of the main protagonist, Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martins.

Alida Valli’s Anna Schmidt, caught between the two of them, is the embodiment of post-war Europe, trying to get by, but getting screwed over by both sides of the American coin.

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