Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Third Man (1949)

Director: Carol Reed
Writers:  Graham Greene
Cast:       Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard

Pulp Novelist Holly Martins travel to postwar Vienna, a city divided and rife with racketeering, to find that his old friend who invited him died mysteriously in a car accident. He stays there to solve the mystery as everything is not as it seems to be.

The film is famous for its innovative cinematography, use of shadows and music. It is a British film and therefore it is more cynical than a traditional Hollywood film. The story is very unique considering the time it was made and I think several films have used a similar three way relationship: the innocent protagonist, distressed damsel and the mysterious third man that connects the former two.  It is essentially a classic love story set in a unique world and much of film was shot in Vienna itself which adds a lot to the film. It was also refreshing to see that plenty of dialogs were in foreign language and not accented English.

Rating: 4.5/5

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