New "Oscars" were handed over two nights ago. The reaction that is almost certain is the multitude of furious rants by film lovers who can't forgive the Academy for favouring [Shakespeare in Love]New “Oscars” were handed out two nights ago. The almost certain reaction is the multitude of furious rants by film lovers who cannot forgive the Academy for favouring Shakespeare in Love, a “crowd-pleasing” romantic comedy, over “true art” in Spielberg’s WWII epic Saving Private Ryan. Of course, this is nothing new, and the debate between those who judge films solely as “art” and those who judge them as “popular entertainment” has been waged for decades.
This distinction can also be seen in the different perspectives of film critics and the average audience when judging films made in certain time periods. A nice example is the question, “What is the best film made in the 1940s?” The average moviegoer would quickly answer with a single word: Casablanca. The average critic would offer at least two other titles. One of them is The Third Man, the 1949 thriller by British director Carol Reed – a film that could be a perfect companion piece to Casablanca.
Just like Michael Curtiz’s celebrated melodrama, The Third Man cleverly uses relatively obscure and now almost forgotten details of that time period in Europe. The setting is post-WW2 Vienna, the picturesque capital of the ancient and mighty Austrian Empire. The empire is long gone, and Austria is reduced to a small country carved up into occupation zones by the victorious Allies. The population of the bombed-out capital is enduring unimaginable economic hardships, and many once-proud citizens are forced to earn a living through the thriving black market.
To this city comes Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotten), an American writer of cheap pulp westerns, who has been invited by his old college friend Harry Lime. Martins is an alcoholic and broke, and writing about Lime’s medical charity operation could help him start his career all over again. However, soon after his arrival, he is greeted with the shocking news of Lime’s death in an automobile accident. To make things even more puzzling, British Major Calloway (played by Trevor Howard) tells him that Harry Lime happened to be one of the worst black-market racketeers in town. Disbelieving and against Calloway’s wishes, Holly decides to stay in Vienna and try to clear his friend’s name.
In the process, he meets Anna Schmidt (played by Alida Valli), an actress and Harry’s mistress. Soon, details about Harry’s illegal activities with fake penicillin emerge, as well as contradictory details about his death. Martins becomes convinced that his friend was murdered, but the real truth is even more shocking.
Comparisons between Casablanca and The Third Man are simply unavoidable. Both have World War 2 in the background, complex characters with various motivations and not-so-clear moral alignment. Both have a protagonist torn between conflicting loyalties, self-interest, and the desire to do the right thing. However, beneath that superficial similarity lies a clear distinction – and the very reason why the public prefers the former and the critics the latter.
Casablanca, despite being an excellent film, is nothing more than a piece of WW2 propaganda wrapped in crowd-pleasing melodrama. The Third Man, on the other hand, was made four years after the war ended. Its director, Carol Reed, spent the war covering it as a documentary filmmaker in the British military and had seen enough to know that the world cannot be divided into black and white. The characters in his film, thanks to screenwriter Graham Greene, are set in different shades of grey.
The film reveals the real results of the noble and epic struggle the heroes of Casablanca engaged in. Europe, instead of enjoying freedom and democracy, is impoverished, demolished, occupied, and humiliated. Wartime alliances are breaking apart on the eve of the Cold War, and noble ideals are replaced with pragmatic policies. In such a gloomy and nihilistic world, there is no place for old-fashioned heroes. Holly Martins is the last of them, still believing in things like friendship and doing the right thing. Unfortunately, this simplistic division of people into good guys and bad guys, straight out of his pulp westerns, brings him nothing but misery.
Joseph Cotten was excellent in this role. Another character who still clings to something like a moral code is Anna Schmidt (played by Italian actress Alida Valli, a great diva of the 1940s), but her character is already damaged by the unimaginable horrors and moral disasters she endured through the war years. Her devotion to her deceased lover, involved in an outrageous racket with faulty medicine, is an attempt to hang onto something solid in a world with lost foundations.
Even the representatives of law and order, who are supposed to be the good guys, are people without scruples. Calloway shows no sympathy towards Martins or Anna – for him, they are simply means to an end. It was an excellent idea to have Bernard Lee (later best known as M in the James Bond series) cast as his trusted sergeant and a kind of comic relief.
However, the pearl that shines most brightly among the actors in this film is Orson Welles. He plays the worst villain of them all, yet the viewer, like poor Anna, cannot escape his captivating evil charisma. Welles’ appearances in the film are relatively brief, but they are the most memorable – whether it is his effective entrance in the last third of the movie, the final confrontation in the Vienna sewers, or the great dialogue at the Ferris Wheel. The latter scene is most remembered for Welles’ immortal words about Switzerland and Renaissance Italy. Welles simply chews the screen, and it should not surprise anyone, since he actually wrote all his lines and practically directed those scenes.
Among other things that distinguish this film from others is the atmosphere. Carol Reed employed all his talent to picture despair, cynicism, and nihilism through visual means. Many scenes are filmed from unusual angles, which is a metaphor for the twisted moral perspectives of the movie’s protagonists. The locations of post-war Vienna were also perfect – they possess a strong contrast between the glorious past, represented in old imperial architecture, and the gloomy present, represented through bombed-out ruins. This contrast serves as a metaphor for the distinction between a nice façade and ugly reality (another good example is the scene where the gangster Popescu makes a threat to Martins in the form of literary criticism).
The streets of Vienna, especially at night, seem like scenery more appropriate for a horror film than a thriller, but Reed amends that by employing the zither music of Anton Karas. The lighthearted music (especially the title theme that later became the unofficial Viennese anthem) is in deep contrast with the anything-but-cheerful events of the film, and it also serves as ironic commentary. Finally, Reed ends the film with one of the longest and most powerful shots in the history of cinema.
The Third Man was in many ways a film before its time. The quantity of cynicism, misanthropy, and nihilism seemed more suitable for some future time periods, including our own. Luckily, we have not been exposed to a remake yet (if we do not count the dreadful 1997 Croatian version called Treća žena). Until that happens, we can enjoy The Third Man as a true, unhindered masterpiece and the ultimate film noir of all time.
RATING: 10/10 (+++++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on March 24st 1999)
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