And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
Hope
To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.--
Erich Fromm
"I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss waltzes, its glamour and easy charm..."
"The Third Man" reflects the optimism of Americans and the bone-weariness of Europe after the war"
The story features an evil, charismatic anti-hero who fakes his own death and makes his home in a Viennese sewer, and ends with its dull, perplexed leading man being silently snubbed by the beautiful, unsmiling heroine in a deserted cemetery. This new print does full justice to Robert Krasker’s dazzling, Oscar-winning black-and-white photography and its exhilaratingly forlorn postwar Vienna.
"The Third Man" is like the exhausted aftermath of "Casablanca." Both have heroes who are American exiles, awash in a world of treachery and black market intrigue. Both heroes love a woman battered by the war. But "Casablanca" is bathed in the hope of victory, while "The Third Man" already reflects the Cold War years of paranoia, betrayal and the Bomb. The hero doesn't get the girl in either movie--but in "Casablanca," Ilsa stays with the resistance leader to help in his fight, while in "The Third Man" Anna remains loyal to a rat. Yet Harry Lime saved Anna, a displaced person who faced certain death. Holly will never understand what Anna did to survive the war, and Anna has absolutely no desire to tell him.
The story begins with a spoken prologue ("I never knew the old Vienna, before the war. . ."). The shattered postwar city has been divided into French, American, British and Russian zones, each with its own cadre of suspicious officials. Into this sinkhole of intrigue falls an American innocent: Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), alcoholic author of pulp Westerns. He has come at the invitation of his college chum Harry Lime. But Lime is being buried when Martins arrives in Vienna.
"The Third Man" was made by men who knew the devastation of Europe at first hand. Carol Reed worked for the British Army's wartime documentary unit, and the screenplay was by Graham Greene, who not only wrote about spies but occasionally acted as one. Reed fought with David O. Selznick, his American producer, over every detail of the movie; Selznick wanted to shoot on sets, use an upbeat score and cast Noel Coward as Harry Lime.
As for Harry Lime: He allows Orson Welles to make the most famous entrance in the history of the movies, and one of the most famous speeches. The famous speech comes during an uneasy ride on a giant Ferris wheel; at one point, Lime slides open the door of the car they are riding in, and Holly uneasily wraps an arm around a post.
Harry tries to justify himself: "You know what the fellow said: 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." (Greene says this speech was written by Welles.)
Of all the movies I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies. I saw it first on a rainy day in a tiny, smoke-filled cinema on the Left Bank in Paris. It told a story of existential loss and betrayal. It was weary and knowing, and its glorious style was an act of defiance against the corrupt world it pictured. Seeing it, I realized how many Hollywood movies were like the pulp Westerns that Holly Martins wrote: naive formulas supplying happy endings for passive consumption. I read the other day that they plan to remake "The Third Man." Do you think Anna will cave in to Holly--or will she remain true to her bitter cynicism and unspeakable knowledge?
Directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene, The Third Man is widely considered the greatest British film of the 20th century. A definitive masterpiece of film noir, it captures the atmospheric decay and moral ambiguity of post-WWII Allied-occupied Vienna.
The Cinematography (The Dutch Angle)
Cinematographer Robert Krasker won an Oscar for his work on the film. The visual style is defined by:
Canted Frames: Almost every shot is tilted (a "Dutch angle"), creating a sense of unease, disorientation, and a world "out of joint."
Chiaroscuro Lighting: High-contrast black and white with long, stretching shadows against wet cobblestone streets.
Deep Focus: Allowing the crumbling architecture of Vienna to feel as present as the actors.
The Zither Score
Director Carol Reed famously rejected a traditional orchestral score after hearing Anton Karas playing a zither in a Viennese wine cellar.
The "Harry Lime Theme" became an international sensation, topping charts for months.
The jaunty, plucking sound of the zither provides a brilliant, ironic contrast to the film's bleak and cynical subject matter.
The climax of The Third Man takes the film's overarching theme of moral rot and plunges it literally underground. The sewer chase sequence is a masterclass in cinematic tension, stripping away the romantic remnants of Vienna to trap Harry Lime in a subterranean labyrinth of his own making.
Robert Krasker’s cinematography and Oswald Hafenrichter’s editing work in absolute lockstep here, turning a physical escape attempt into an expressionistic nightmare.
1. The Lighting: Weaponized Chiaroscuro
In the sewers, Krasker abandons traditional fill lighting entirely. The scene relies almost exclusively on harsh, single-source illumination that divides the frame into absolute whites and deep, stygian blacks.
Blinding Backlighting: Lime and his pursuers are frequently shot directly against powerful lights positioned deep within the tunnels. This converts the characters into sharp, featureless silhouettes. It strips away Harry Lime's charming facial expressions, reducing him to what he fundamentally is to the law: a fleeing shadow.
Dynamic Flashlight Beams: The police flashlights act as active narrative elements. They slice through the damp, misty gloom, sweeping across the curved brickwork. These moving arcs of light create a frantic, unstable environment where shadows constantly warp, stretch, and collapse along the tunnel walls.
The Texture of Water: Just as the streets above were sprayed down, the rushing subterranean water and slick brick surfaces act as mirrors. They catch and scatter the glints of light, ensuring that even in total darkness, there is a sinister, glistening texture to the frame.
The Ending: A Masterclass in Subversion
The film's ending is famous for its refusal to provide a "Hollywood" resolution. After Harry is truly buried, Holly Martins waits by the road for Anna (Alida Valli), Harry’s lover. In a long, static shot, she walks toward the camera from the distance. Rather than stopping to join him, she walks straight past him without a word or a glance, disappearing off-screen.
Producer David O. Selznick fought for a happy ending where they walk away arm-in-arm, but Carol Reed stood his ground, creating one of the most poignant "long takes" in film history.
