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The Third Man

"The Third Man" (1949) is a film noir set in post-World War II/early-Cold War Vienna where an American's search for his missing friend is set against a backdrop of confused politics—four Allied armies occupying different parts of the city—and conflicting loyalties—particularly as he learns more about his friend's activities in the worn-torn city.

The film was directed by Carol Reed, also known for "The Agony and the Ecstasy" and "Oliver!," and starred Joseph Cotten as the American searching for his friend, Orson Welles as his missing friend, and Trevor Howard, as a British Army officer, who is also looking for Harry Lime.

The film has won numerous awards and accolades including the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1949, the BAFTA for Best British Film in 1951, and the British Film Institute's award for the best British film of the 20th Century. It has also appeared on many lists of the best films including the American Film Institute's list of the best 100 American films from the first 100 years of filmmaking. As of the end of 2009, the film was 61st of the Internet Movie Database user-voted Top 250 Films. Harry Lime, the missing friend, played by Orson Welles, was also voted as one of the 100 greatest villains of all-time by the American Film Institute.

How It's Used

"When it comes to the big wheel, size and speed are not everything. The modest 65-metre, slow-moving, 110-year-old Riesenrad in Vienna's Prater amusement park remains the most famous in the world thanks to the 1949 film, 'The Third Man,' in which it is immortalised as the revolving stage at the foot of which Orson Welles' character, Harry Lime, makes his cynical proclamation about culture, democracy and cuckoo clocks."

"Design-conscious directors elevate films to art, conjure poetry and deliver emotional impact through synaesthesia, an evocation of other senses and of meaning through stimulating the visual. Think Jarman's 'Caravaggio,' with its 3-D re-creations of paintings, Baz Luhrmann's 'Moulin Rouge' with its giant elephant, Carol Reed's 'The Third Man' with its haunting shadows on the wall. The list is endless."

"Whether audiences will be drawn to him is another story. But the subject of 'Body of Lies' seems custom-made for Mr. Scott, whose films -- which include 'Blade Runner,' 'Black Hawk Down' and three movies with Mr. Crowe ('Gladiator,' 'A Good Year' and 'American Gangster') -- often involve landscapes in which the director's visual virtuosity can be exercised. Occasionally they feature situations in which perception is amorphous and good intentions are thwarted. 'Isn't that the world?' Mr. Scott said, laughing. 'Isn't that everything? And that's just this week.'

"'For me,' Mr. Scott added, 'the film is about their dance of seduction, betrayal, deceit, and layers and levels of it. But it could have happened anytime in the last 35 years, going back into Beirut. Or it could be the cold war. Berlin during the Marshall Plan. It could be "The Third Man,"'he said, referring to the 1949 film so jaded in it its worldview that it might be set in silver."

"Even by the standards of his elected genre, Pynchon's success is debatable. I was waiting and hoping for real-estate tycoon Mickey Wolfmann—the current boyfriend of Doc's ex, seemingly a capitalist villain whose disappearance sparks most of the action—to make a dramatic entrance, like Harry Lime in 'The Third Man,' but when he finally does turn up briefly, he's barely present at all."

"'I was gripped and horrified, but I was also quite shamefaced, because I hadn't heard of Rwanda, or if I had, only in passing, and I knew nothing about it,' Rogers said by phone this week from his writing studio in Brooklyn. He began reading, trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge. The result, more than a decade later, was 'The Overwhelming,' having its local premiere run in a Company One production at the Boston Center for the Arts.

"The play is a thriller about an American family in over its head in Africa, inspired in part by Graham Greene's 'The Third Man.' But it arose from Rogers's basic questions about the genocide, filled out by talking to Rwandans here and eventually an emotional trip to that deeply scarred country."

Also Known As (AKA)

The 3rd Man

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