“Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, 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!”
The restored, 4k update of THE THIRD MAN opens Friday, August 7th in St. Louis at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater
Roger Ebert called Harry Lime, the character played by Orson Welles in the 1949 classic THE THIRD MAN, his favorite screen villain of all time. Fittingly, he gets one of the great movie character introductions — an unforgettable one involving a doorway, a cat, and a sudden beam of light. There’s a reason that the only Academy Award won by THE THIRD MAN, one of the most beloved films of all time, went to Robert Krasker for cinematography – this night-shrouded mystery is visually eye-popping and the picture quality of director Carol Reed’s masterpiece is one of its most essential attributes.
Taking place in Vienna post WWII, THE THIRD MAN follows pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) on a trip to meet his friend Harry Lime (Welles) in Vienna, only Holly soon learns that Harry has died in an accident outside his apartment. Looking for answers, Holly discovers that there’s more to it than he realized and that Harry might not have been the person he thought he was. Trevor Howard and Alida Valli co-star as Maj. Calloway, who leads the investigation into the truth of Lime’s death and Anna, Harry’s former lover whom Holly falls for.
Darkness pervades nearly every scene as Holly inches closer to the truth. Coupled with Reed’s keen eye for dramatic camera angles, THE THIRD MAN maintains suspense throughout, from its opening to the famous final sewer sequence. THE THIRD MAN won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the British Film Academy’s best British film award and an Academy Award for Robert Krasker’s cinematography. Anton Karas’ score was played entirely on a zither, and ‘Harry Lime’s Theme’ was the most popular international title in 1950. Karas’ music was so famous, he opened a nightclub in Vienna called, naturally, The Third Man in 1954, and played his famous music there until 1966. Harry Lime was so memorable that Welles reprised him in radio shows — there was even a television show in the late ‘50s in which Lime (played by Michael Rennie) was the hero who made money dealing art and solving crime.
St. Louis-area fans of THE THIRD MAN are in for a treat as the new, 4K restoration of the film opens August 7th at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater. THE THIRD MAN spent decades in the public domain and many film buffs grew up watching it in tattered 16mm prints and fuzzy VHS transfers. I got to see this new hi-def, polished THE THIRD MAN on the big screen last week at a sneak and it was like seeing it for the first time. This is one of those classics that if you haven’t ever seen, it’s always the right time to watch. Or in this case, catch it on the big screen looking better than ever before. THE THIRD MAN is the best movie in town.
