Blogging the midnight oil! I remembered there was, after all, something worth commenting on from last week, and so, I present…
Classic Movie Mini-Review!
Last Thursday night, we watched The Third Man (1949). I hadn’t seen it in about ten years. I spotted the video for £3.99 (in Virgin) and snapped it up. Well, what a movie! Orson Welles—need I say more? Yes. Welles has no creative role here; the story is Graham Greene’s and the direction is Carol Reed’s (Ollie Reed’s uncle). The setting is post-War Vienna, both beautiful and yet still ravaged by the conflict. The story is about the black market, an apparently dead racketeer and a ‘third man’… to say any more would be a spoiler. The emphasis is totally on atmosphere.
Welles, as Harry Lime, has only a short amount of screen time—little more than a cameo—but of course he steals it. The scene where we finally see Lime, as a shadowy figure in a doorway which is suddenly illuminated by a nearby light, is one of the great moments of cinema. The camera slowly closes in on his face, and just a hint of a wry smile appears. Unforgettable.
The rest of the cast is also great. Joseph Cotten is just Joseph Cotten, which is fine with me; Alida Valli is outstanding (I realise those who only know the older version with bad false teeth in Dario Argento’s Suspiria might not believe this); and Trevor Howard has the perfect degree of British stiff upper-lippism.
The story doesn’t shake the earth. It’s intriguing and effective, but it’s certainly the atmosphere that makes the trip. The setting is so haunting. I can’t imagine it working half as well in colour. Anton Karas’ legendary musical score finishes things off brilliantly. The pursuit climax in the city’s sewers is a little ordinary, but even then we have an extremely tense, claustrophobic sequence where Lime can hear his pursuers closing in through tunnels on all sides. As a whole, I can’t find fault. I was delighted to see it again, and if anyone out there has managed to miss it, you should consider it essential viewing. An almost perfect film.
The old saying? ‘Don’t make ’em like they used to.’ This is a great example of how true that is.