Emory Cinematheque: The Third Man

Emory Cinematheque: The Third Man Directed by Carol Reed , 1949 | 104 min. Arguably no film better captured the sense of post-World War II disillusionment than Carol Reed’s realization of an original Graham Greene script about despicable crime and corruption in Vienna. Declared by at least one critic as “probably the greatest British thriller of the postwar era,” the film, featuring exteriors shot on location in Vienna, is largely a detective noir featuring an out of his depth American pulp fiction writer Holly Martens (Joseph Cotton), his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) and the woman they both love (Alida Valli). Reed elicited memorable performances from his cast (also including Trevor Howard). Cinematographer Robert Krasker furthered the film's unsettling atmosphere with his extensive use of canted angles. And Anton Karas’s zither “Third Man Theme” achieved top-charting status for nearly three months. You will have a hard time forgetting it or more to the point, the film. Free e