The Third Man

Roger Ebert mentions the 1949 film "The Third Man" in the introduction to his Great Movies list. I haven't seen it so I thought I'd check it out.

It builds on a great premise: Holly Martins, a writer of Western novels, arrives to meet his friend Harry Lime in post-WWII Vienna, only to discover Harry has been hit and killed in a traffic accident. But was it really an accident? Of course, Martins, played by Joseph Cotten, has to stay in Vienna to find out.

Martins meets Lime's girlfriend Anna Schmidt at Lime's funeral, and she turns out to have a few secrets. I could have sworn she was played by Vivien Leigh. Actually it's Italian actress Alida Valli, who shines in her performance as a world-weary actress.

Cotten earns our empathy in his role as the nice guy investigator in a foreign city. Looks-wise, he reminds me of a cross between Tony Curtis and Ray Liotta.

One of the most interesting aspects of this movie is the ambiguity -- whom can you trust in this post-war world? Friends, lovers, the police, seemingly uninvolved Austrians who were eyewitnesses to the accident/murder?

And Ebert makes much of the filming in Vienna: "(Director Carol) Reed defied convention by shooting entirely on location in Vienna, where mountains of rubble stood next to gaping bomb craters, and the ruins of empire supported a desperate black market economy." There's no explanation necessary for why characters in the film are so tired and distrusting.

The final chase scene is fantastic, a world of light and shadows that looks amazing in black and white.

The surprises (one scene in particular) and the visual details make "The Third Man" a movie you will remember.