Moving
Talking Pictures
The
Greatest Movies You Have Never Seen
By
Mohammad A. Qayyum
The Third Man (1949)
*in
Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles
“In
In 1949,
with these few improvised and now legend lines Orson Welles,
boy wonder of the past, major wastrel of talent for that present and future and
already getting fat and bloated (in more ways than one), put in for some talent
redemption in Carol Reed’s The Third Man. He also thus put to film one
of the most effective – if not that, certainly one of the most harrowing –
cameos in modern film. Who would have expected it? Film Co-producer David Selznick certainly did not. He wanted Noel Coward in Welles’ role thinking Welles a
prima donna. Carol Reed, the director, fought on for Welles and in that he prevailed
Reed and Welles ended up saving one another (Welles at least for a while) and the movie (for posterity).
They ended up putting to film, “the greatest movies of all time” (AFI) or at
least the Greatest British Film Noir movie of them all.
Carol
Reed’s The Third Man was a marvel of synchronocity,
one of the few movies where all of the elements seemed to come together and
work a wonder: Peter Bogdanovich, the famous critic
cum actor, aptly dubbed it a happy accident movie, “a movie where all elements
gel into something totally timeless. Like say in
In its
success, The Third Man was possibly the true highlight of Reed’s career.
He did the acclaimed Oliver! and the
half-decent The Agony & the Ecstacy thereafter
and was knighted in 1952 (the first film director to be so honoured)
but here the success was quite instant. When the movie was released, the kudos
came thick and fast. The movie was also Nominated for
Best Director and Best Editing. It won the Cinematorgraphy
Oscar and the Palm D’Or at
The movie
might have been Reed’s but it is infused with the spirit and touch of Welles. Yet a lot of his work here has Welles’
trademark feel. So much so that people have often debated
that the movie may well have been directed by Welles
over Reed’s shoulder. Welles later denied the
same, but his influence in camerawork and technique is overwhelmingly there. In
fact it is quite a fun exercise to compare the camera work of Welles’ Citizen Kane to Reed’s Third
Having said
that, it needs be added
The film is shot in Black and White and it certainly adds to its
atmosphere. The Oscar winning cinematography by Robert Krasker
and the lighting is jaw droppingly effective. A lot
of titled shots and oblique angles are used. The claustrophobia and nightmarishness of the climax is staggering. Wide angled
lenses and shadow shots are memorable in the distortion and gothic feel they five to the movie .Generally too the city is given a sickley, decadent sheen, one that effectively mirrors
Lime’s decadent and decayed soul.
The irony
is that Holly Martin’s seeking out the Third Man in the movie ends up becoming
it himself. There is a strange and remarkable circularity to various scenes of
the movie. As much as the music sounds circular, there are a lot of images that
find the characters coming full circle.
The comedy
too is memorable. It is almost Hitchcockian (though
Reed did not rate Hitchcock) in comedically deftlating false suspense. Martins is
taken for a ride by some tough guys and fears the worst is to come for him.
When the car stops, he jumps out of the car trying to run away only to learn
that he was being escorted to something infinitely more pleasant. What follows
though at this infinitely more pleasant event thereafter is even more
hilarious.
In all of
this The Third Man is a remarkable meditation on a corrupt soul and
others who have to struggle to deal with it (Martins, Lime’s lover, the
police). Consider the bonechilling lines mouthed by Welles to his old once-friend Martins on the Ferris Wheel towering about people his acts had destroyed:
Martins: Have you ever
seen any of your victims?
Harry Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be
melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots
stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot
that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you
calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man.
Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.
On the
acting front, Welles cameo is of course is legendary
in its brilliance. Yet it is Joseph Cotton who is the surprise package here.
Cotton who was the weakest link in Citizen Kane playing the straight man does
so here as well. He was in fact forced to be employed by Reed by David Selznick. Here he pays off in spades. The interplay
especially on the ferris wheel wherein Lime mouthes the famous ‘all those dots’ speech is remarkable
for its subtle interplay, in the manner in which Lime and Welles
seeks to play Cotton’s Martins. It is all a masterwork of subtle facial
expressions and wordplay. Certainly, a quote I came across from Cotton puts his
credentials really well: "Orson Welles lists
'Citizen Kane' as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for 'Shadow of a doubt'
and Sir Carol Reed chose 'The Third Man' - and I'm in all of them." Nuff said really. Among the rest of the cast, Trevor Howard
as the straight and strict British officer provides an effective counterpoint
to the mostly naďve Cotton: he is mostly detached but hits just the right notes
of concern when required.
Yet there
is so much more which makes this movie memorable. Anton Karas’
Zither music stay with you. The Third Man Theme
takes root in one’s head, never to leave the same. So much so
that when the movie would later be recalled by Billy Joel in his song
Now,
recently the movie has made its way to
Yet unlike
most of the movies of the past, the Third Man has not aged at all. Rather it
has gained in resonance as the world thereafter lost even more of its innocence
to come to terms with the bleakness that haunts the movie. This is
anti-Casablanca. Where