Carol Reed, The Third Man, 1949

In any discussion of the greatest film of all time, many people are quick to mention Citizen Kane. While that may be true especially for the advances in cinematography and technical filmmaking that are on display in Citizen, another film with Orson Welles, Carol Reed's The Third Man, should certainly get a mention in this discussion.

From the opening credits, which feature a close up of Spanish zither strings vibrating to the film's theme song, Carol Reed seems to be telling the viewer, "Be prepared for your perspective to be manipulated like these strings". Orson Welles plays Harry Lime, the title character, and he is well remembered for the cuckoo clock soliloquey (*Careful: Link contains spoilers) which Welles wrote as well as his storied entrance into the film. However, in actuality Welles' screen time is minimal.


In my mind, this film is driven by the wonderful script of Graham Greene (back in the days when serious novelists like William Faulkner would write screenplays as a foot in the door to the serious literary world), the solid lead performance by Joe Cotten and the artful film noir direction and cinematography of Carol Reed and Robert Krasker. This is one of those films with images that are so powerful and pleasing to the eye that you'll want to hit 'pause' and take in frame by frame this world full of shadows and smattered with intense patches of light.




And oh what a great finish the Third Man delivers. Not only does it contain a great climactic chase scene through the sewers, which was totally ripped off by Andrew Davis' use of Harrison Ford in The Fugitive, it contains a poignant last scene, which has been mirrored in countless other films since then.