The Third Man
March 1st, 2007
Hadn’t seen this “greatest of foreign noirs” (Bogdanovich) in a good long while, and so I expected the angles and the shadows, Orson and the cuckoo clocks, the Prater and the sewers, the exquisite Graham Greene plotting and cutting repartee, but I had forgotten just how masterfully it all fits together. The German-language bit players are all fantastic, especially Paul Hörbiger and Hedwig Bleibtreu. The last shot got me good, and I have a new favorite line, too: “I had no idea there were snake charmers in South Texas!” Makes The Good German look especially pointless in retrospect. Muckworld trivia: I used to work for a Hispaniola Honorary Consul.
The Third Man. Carol Reed, 1949. *****
- More Graham Greene
- The Third Man on Criterion DVD
- If you haven’t seen the movie, this clip will spoil it. If you have, it’s going to make you want to see it again:
