Start the week with a film: ‘The Third Man’ is a first-rate game of lies and shadows
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Graham Greene’s The Third Man was originally a screen treatment for a Carol Reed film. Greene and Reed had collaborated on the film The Fallen Idol in 1948. They teamed up again the following year for The Third Man, which Green published as a novella in 1950. “The Third Man was never written to be read but only to be seen,” Greene wrote in the preface to the book.
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The black-and-white classic is set in Vienna after World War II. Despite the grandeur of the Austrian capital’s Baroque buildings and its pretty cobblestoned streets, this is an untrustworthy place, full of shady types who lurk in hotel lobbies and use the vast network of sewers to smuggle goods and people.
American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) comes to Vienna to meet his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to be told that Harry has recently died in an accident. Convinced that Harry was killed, Martins starts poking around. Interpol officer Calloway (Trevor Howard) reveals Harry’s unsavoury past, while Harry’s devastated lover Anna (Alida Valli) insists on his innocence.
The movie can be rented on Prime Video.
The Third Man is justly regarded as one of the most visually memorable films ever made. Few directors have used architectural details, camera angles and looming shadows...