11 Aug The Third Man
The Third Man, WWII Movie starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten
(1949) The first thing I noticed about this remarkable black and white film was the zither music score. That was the only music in the entire movie. What I learned is that Producer/Director Carol Reed heard Anton Karas play the zither at a reception in a Vienna hotel and hired him! Karas’ “3rd Man Theme” became a worldwide hit.
Then I noticed the camera work, the photography. No wonder it won the Academy Award for cinematography in 1951. Really, this film is a work of art, a classic Film Noir.
And what I didn’t notice was Orson Welles. Halfway through the movie, I realized that I hadn’t seen him yet. Or, I didn’t think I had!
How the movie came about is a story all by itself. The screenwriter was Graham Greene, interesting to me because he worked for British Intelligence during WWII at the same time my mother was working for OSS London. In fact, one evening in 1944 they were on Rooftop Fire Watch together while London was being bombed.
The Third Man was filmed primarily in Vienna, 1949, so the buildings are the real thing. The cobblestones, the shadows, the alleyways, the sewers. As in Berlin, Vienna was divided into four sectors with a central international zone. The black market was king.
Today in Vienna you can even take a Third Man Tour or visit the Third Man Museum.
The Third Man: The Criterion Collection at amazon.com
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