Cinema
The Third Man
Carol Reed · 1949
Synopsis
Holly Martins, an American author of cheap westerns, arrives in Vienna, where his childhood friend Harry Lime has promised him work. The porter of the building tells him that Harry was knocked down by a car in front of his home, and he attends the funeral. The British Major Calloway advises him to leave and tells him that the dead man was the worst racketeer in the city. Holly refuses to believe it, stays and questions the witnesses: according to a friend of Harry's, two men carried the body, but the porter saw a third.
Context
The film was shot in 1948 in the ruins of Vienna, then occupied by four powers, from a story that the writer had first written as a simple story. The director heard a Viennese zither player, Anton Karas, at a reception, brought him to London and entrusted him with all the music: the record stayed eleven weeks at the top of the American sales charts, and the musician later opened in Vienna a wine tavern named after the film, which he ran until his retirement. Some of the sewer scenes were shot in the city's real sewers. The most quoted tirade, on Swiss cuckoo clocks, was written by the actor who delivers it, Orson Welles.
Who it is for
One hundred and four minutes in black and white, in English with subtitles, with many tilted camera angles and a score for solo zither.
Prizes and reception
Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1949, when this prize was not yet called the Palme d'Or, and first in the ranking of British films drawn up in London in 1999.
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