#230. The Third Man
- Year: 1949
- Country: Great Britain
- Language: English/German
- Production: British Lion, London, 104m B&W
- Director: Carol Reed
- Producer: Carol Reed
- Screenplay: Graham Greene
- Photography: Robert Krasker
- Music: Anton Karas
- Cast: Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard
- Oscar Wins: Best Cinematography
- Oscar Noms: Best Director, Best Editing
- Blog Club Rating: 8.8/10
Abridged Book Description[]
Written for the screen by Graham Greene, Carol Reed's The Third Man effectively transfers the urban nightmare world of Hollywood film noir of the 1940s to a European setting. Picking up the messy aftermath of the war and providing a five-years-on follow-up to the works of British thriller writers and European exile filmmakers, it shows the postwar consequences of movements expressed in early Hitchcock films... Occupied Vienna, divided between four military powers and plagued by black-marketing scoundrels, is as fantastical a setting as any devised for studio exoticism, but Reed and his crew were able to shoot on location, amid rubble and glitz, capturing a world of fear that was all too real... A rare British film that is as accomplished technically as the best of classic Hollywood - Reed never did anything as masterly again - The Third Man is an outstanding mix of political thriller, weird romance, gothic mystery, and black-and-white romantic agony.