Tag: carol reed

THE THIRD MAN Screens May 3rd at The Tivoli – ‘Classics in the Loop’

“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!”

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THE THIRD MAN screens Wednesday May 3rd at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

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.
thid-Man-5
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.
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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.

thirdmanscreenshot-lrg-18

St. Louis-area fans of THE THIRD MAN are in for a treat as THE THIRD MAN screens Wednesday May 5th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. 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.  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.

Here’s the rest of the line-up for the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series:
May 10th – TOUCH OF EVIL – 1958
May 17th – CHINATOWN – 1974
May 24th – BLOOD SIMPLE – 1984

Look for continued coverage of the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series here at We Are movie Geeks.

Harry Lime and the Restored THE THIRD MAN Opens in St. Louis

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“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!”

third-man-ferris-wheel

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.
thid-Man-5
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.
thirdmqn2
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.

thirdmanscreenshot-lrg-18

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.

 

 

 

Carol Reed’s THE THIRD MAN To Get 4K Restoration And Release

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New York-based distributor Rialto Pictures will release Carol Reed’s Film Noir masterpiece THE THIRD MAN in a major 4K restoration – the first ever for the 1949 mega-classic.

The new restoration has its world premiere this month in the “Cannes Classics” section of the Cannes Film Festival, with U.S. openings at New York’s Film Forum on June 26 (2-week run) and L.A.’s Nuart on July 3. Engagements in San Francisco, Washington, DC, Seattle, Philadelphia and other major markets will follow.

A rare collaboration of legendary producers Alexander Korda and David O. Selznick, THE THIRD MAN was Reed’s second teaming with novelist/screenwriter Graham Greene. An instant critical and commercial sensation, it won the Palme D’Or at Cannes, the British Film Academy’s Best British Film award, and an Academy Award for Robert Krasker’s expressionist, now iconic b&w cinematography, and was also Oscar-nominated for Best Director.

Anton Karas’ haunting “Third Man Theme,” performed by the composer on a zither, was a worldwide hit.

THE THIRD MAN remains the only movie on both the American Film Institute and British Film Institute Top 100 lists of, respectively, the greatest American and British films of all time (the Brits named it their Number One), as well as being as well as being named The Greatest Foreign Film of All Time… by the Japanese.

The award-winning team at Deluxe Restoration carried out the new 4K digital restoration of THE THIRD MAN on behalf of Studiocanal. Following rigorous comparison of different available elements, the 4K scan was done from a fine grain master positive struck from the original negative. Release prints were used as a reference for the grading.

This year’s Cannes Classics also features a new 4K restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s RAN, to be released by Rialto later this year.

“ONE OF THE FINEST FILMS EVER MADE!” – The New York TImes

“ONE GREAT SCENE AFTER ANOTHER! ONE GREAT SHOT AFTER ANOTHER! I’VE SEEN IT 50 TIMES AND IT’S STILL MAGIC!” – Roger Ebert

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THE THIRD MAN is also a part of Turner Classic Movies Summer of Darkness film noir programming event. The summer programming event beings June 5 at 6 a.m. and airs for 24 hours on Fridays in June and July with primetime screenings hosted by Eddie Muller, known to classic film fans as “The Czar of Noir” and as a frequent TCM contributor, introducing noir films on-air and at the TCM Classic Film Festival.

The film will air on TCM on JUNE 26, 2015.

See the full schedule HERE.

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Photos Courtesy: Rialto Pictures/Studiocanal

Classic Revival: ‘The Third Man’ (1949)

. The Third Man is a classic film noir that boasts excellence in several areas. The film was directed by Academy Award-winner Carol Reed and was written by acclaimed author Graham Greene, who wrote this story as a novella before he adapted it into a screenplay. The film stars Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Orsen Welles. The film won the 1949 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the British Academy Award for Best Film and an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked The Third Man 57th on their “100 Years… 100 Movies” list of films. The story follows Holly Martin (Cotten), an American author of low-brow pulp western novels, who arrives in post-war Vienna, Austria to meet with a friend who has offered him a job. His friend’s name is Harry Lime, but as soon as he arrives at Lime’s residence he learns that Lime has just recently died of an apparent accidental death. It doesn’t take long for Holly to become suspicious as he begins asking questions, because he keeps getting conflicting stories about how many people were at the scene of the accident.
Thus begins Holly’s search for the elusive “third man” who was present at the scene. During his search, Holly develops an intimate friendship with Anna (Valli), Lime’s lover. No one believes Holly at first, advising him to let it go and return home to America, but he persists. Eventually, Holly presses the international police to fill him in on the details of his friends’ seedy underworld life in Austria and Holly finally decides to forget the whole thing … until he sees Lime (Welles) hiding and watching him in the shadows. Now the search is on, with the help of the police, to capture the criminal who faked his own death. Unlike many classics from this era, The Third Man doesn’t suffer from dated dialogue or acting, but actually remains a great film with great performances. However, the most satisfying performance is that of the cinematographer and his camera in collaboration with the director. This is one of the most amazing black and white movies of all time for cinematography, creating the perfect atmosphere for this tale of dark deception and tense, dangerously mysterious environment of post-war Austria. While Orsen Welles is great in this movie, he actually doesn’t even appear on screen until late in the film. I imagine the film’s abundant marketing of Welles as the film’s star was purely to bank on his name. In reality, Cotten is the film’s star. I highly recommend this film to anyone interested in catching up on the classics. The Third Man is available on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection.