The Third Man

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Day 296 of 365 of my year long challenge Week 43: Heroes and Villains ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Third Man is as stylish, as clever and as masterful as they come. The noir thriller that makes Hollywood and America so seedy and great takes a leap to the streets of Vienna. Here, ruined but not broken by war, Vienna has grown a healthy black market with Harry Lime (Orson Welles) somewhere in the thick of it. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an innocent pulp writer, friends with Harry and the hero of our story. With Harry dead, though, Holly must find a way to uncover the truth, even if there is a conspiracy to keep it hidden. What makes The Third Man quite so outstanding is that it really is a perfect combination of casting, performances, script and style. Every part alone is something memorable but taken together, it all steps up to become something greater. Cotten is a perfect patsy who wants so desperately to believe in the good and his friends. He's a man without an anchor but he tries at every turn to ground himself, to make sure that he can get the story. Standing between him and that though is the British Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), Harry's friends, Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) and any number of witnesses. Everyone has a different story to tell but each holds a vital key to one, singular truth. Cotten may be the patsy set up to find it or find an end but there's nothing to stop blind, American optimism. Even though Cotten is our leading man, he's almost stood up by just about everyone around him. Valli's Anna is a strong character who seems just as cunning as everyone else. She may end up little more than a love interest but she didn't seem to get the memo. She's as stubborn and strong as everyone else and you can't help but see why so many fall in love with her. Calloway and Paine, too, are given their dues as a surprising source of wit and entertainment. It's dry British wit of the best kind and it only adds to the charm of the film. Nothing though compares to Welles' perfect Harry Lime. Ostensibly the victim of the story's plot, Harry is as much the villain as he is undoubtedly charming (even though you never see what he did nor really believe that he is all that bad). It may only get small screentime but it's a role that Welles simply owns and builds to be forever memorable. As memorable as the performances in The Third Man is the atmospheric, expressionist lighting and the stellar soundtrack. Carol Reed, the director, seems to have gone to town twisting the camera in all sorts of ways to create a film with striking shots that really only add to a tense and suspicious atmosphere. You never quite know what the camera is going to do and even though some critics seem to have famously taken issue with it, The Third Man would be nothing without this dynamic creativity. What's more, is that The Third Man has a soundtrack so unlike anything I could have possibly expected. Composed by Anton Karas and played on a zither (it's a new instrument on me too), the music here is perfectly suited but also at odds with the film. Here we'd normally expect brooding strings and melancholic jazz, we get an almost jaunty sound that suits the action so well and somehow makes every scene all the more tense and suspicious. It's so much fun and it makes me yearn for more like it. The Third Man takes us from the heights of Vienna to the sewers below and everywhere in between. It is a city divided by the victors of war but run by the scoundrels left behind. This is a world where innocence goes to die but it's all too much fun. From top to bottom, The Third Man is an outstanding film and by God, I want more.