Moving Talking Pictures

The Greatest Movies You Have Never Seen

By Mohammad A. Qayyum

 

The Genius, the Englishman and Redemption through a Cuckoo Clock

 

The Third Man (1949)

*in Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles

 

 

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love--they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

 

 

In 1949, with these few improvised and now legend lines Orson Welles, boy wonder of the past, major wastrel of talent for that present and future and already getting fat and bloated (in more ways than one), put in for some talent redemption in Carol Reed’s The Third Man. He also thus put to film one of the most effective – if not that, certainly one of the most harrowing – cameos in modern film. Who would have expected it? Film Co-producer David Selznick certainly did not. He wanted Noel Coward in Welles’ role thinking Welles a prima donna. Carol Reed, the director, fought on for Welles and in that he prevailed Reed and Welles ended up saving one another (Welles at least for a while) and the movie (for posterity). They ended up putting to film, “the greatest movies of all time” (AFI) or at least the Greatest British Film Noir movie of them all.

 

Carol Reed’s The Third Man was a marvel of synchronocity, one of the few movies where all of the elements seemed to come together and work a wonder: Peter Bogdanovich, the famous critic cum actor, aptly dubbed it a happy accident movie, “a movie where all elements gel into something totally timeless. Like say in Casablanca.” Graham Greene’s script was a morality play cum mystery cum romance cum travelogue cum international thriller. All of these disparate elements were rather efficiently blended together into a seamless whole by Greene (several times a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature but never winner). The story twisted and turned but the premise was simple. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), an alcoholic writer of paperback Westerns, at the invitation of his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) comes to post World War II Vienna on the promise of a job. He arrives only to find that Lime has died. Or has he been murdered. As the film unfolds Martins suspects the latter and takes to investigating the matter which leads to tragic, unsettling consequences. Set against the backdrop of bombed out Vienna, when the city was divided up between the four victorious powers and where blackmarketing and all manner of depravity teemed, the movie draws memorable influences in from each of these settings to arrive at a harrowing climax at the end.

 

In its success, The Third Man was possibly the true highlight of Reed’s career. He did the acclaimed Oliver! and the half-decent The Agony & the Ecstacy thereafter and was knighted in 1952 (the first film director to be so honoured) but here the success was quite instant. When the movie was released, the kudos came thick and fast. The movie was also Nominated for Best Director and Best Editing. It won the Cinematorgraphy Oscar and the Palm D’Or at Cannes.

 

The movie might have been Reed’s but it is infused with the spirit and touch of Welles. Yet a lot of his work here has Welles’ trademark feel. So much so that people have often debated that the movie may well have been directed by Welles over Reed’s shoulder. Welles later denied the same, but his influence in camerawork and technique is overwhelmingly there. In fact it is quite a fun exercise to compare the camera work of WellesCitizen Kane to Reed’s Third Man. The similarities between Greg Toland’s work and Robert Kasker’s is there for all to see.

 

Having said that, it needs be added  The film is shot in Black and White and it certainly adds to its atmosphere. The Oscar winning cinematography by Robert Krasker and the lighting is jaw droppingly effective. A lot of titled shots and oblique angles are used. The claustrophobia and nightmarishness of the climax is staggering. Wide angled lenses and shadow shots are memorable in the distortion and gothic feel they five to the movie .Generally too the city is given a sickley, decadent sheen, one that effectively mirrors Lime’s decadent and decayed soul.

 

The irony is that Holly Martin’s seeking out the Third Man in the movie ends up becoming it himself. There is a strange and remarkable circularity to various scenes of the movie. As much as the music sounds circular, there are a lot of images that find the characters coming full circle.

 

The comedy too is memorable. It is almost Hitchcockian (though Reed did not rate Hitchcock) in comedically deftlating false suspense. Martins is taken for a ride by some tough guys and fears the worst is to come for him. When the car stops, he jumps out of the car trying to run away only to learn that he was being escorted to something infinitely more pleasant. What follows though at this infinitely more pleasant event thereafter is even more hilarious.

 

In all of this The Third Man is a remarkable meditation on a corrupt soul and others who have to struggle to deal with it (Martins, Lime’s lover, the police). Consider the bonechilling lines mouthed by Welles to his old once-friend Martins on the Ferris Wheel towering about people his acts had destroyed:

 

Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims?
Harry Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand 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 spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

 

On the acting front, Welles cameo is of course is legendary in its brilliance. Yet it is Joseph Cotton who is the surprise package here. Cotton who was the weakest link in Citizen Kane playing the straight man does so here as well. He was in fact forced to be employed by Reed by David Selznick. Here he pays off in spades. The interplay especially on the ferris wheel wherein Lime mouthes the famous ‘all those dots’ speech is remarkable for its subtle interplay, in the manner in which Lime and Welles seeks to play Cotton’s Martins. It is all a masterwork of subtle facial expressions and wordplay. Certainly, a quote I came across from Cotton puts his credentials really well: "Orson Welles lists 'Citizen Kane' as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for 'Shadow of a doubt' and Sir Carol Reed chose 'The Third Man' - and I'm in all of them." Nuff said really. Among the rest of the cast, Trevor Howard as the straight and strict British officer provides an effective counterpoint to the mostly naďve Cotton: he is mostly detached but hits just the right notes of concern when required.

 

Yet there is so much more which makes this movie memorable. Anton Karas’ Zither music stay with you. The Third Man Theme takes root in one’s head, never to leave the same. So much so that when the movie would later be recalled by Billy Joel in his song Vienna. (Disc 4 of the Billy Joel Box Set - a must listen -) it was the zither music Billy especially made a point to mention.

 

Now, recently the movie has made its way to Pakistan for DVD release. It has a lovely restored print and a host of special features which include two differently edited versions of the movie on the same DVD (with different introductions). There are also added bonuses of Bogdanonivich’s concise but interesting introduction, interesting production notes and pictures, an excellent commentary track and even two radio programs of the Orson Welles doing the continuing adventures of Harry Lime. The best among the extras though is the novelisation of the script by Graham Greene himself.

 

Yet unlike most of the movies of the past, the Third Man has not aged at all. Rather it has gained in resonance as the world thereafter lost even more of its innocence to come to terms with the bleakness that haunts the movie. This is anti-Casablanca. Where Casablanca found hope in the midst of war, here with the coming on of the cold war, the Third Man just sees bleakness. In that the doyen of all critics Roger Ebert declared The Third Man was declared “One of the top ten films of all time” or the AFI as the Greatest British Movie Ever Made.