The Third Man

Year of Release:  1949
Director:  Carol Reed
Screenplay:  Graham Greene
Starring:  Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli (as Valli), Orson Welles, Trevor Howard
Running Time:  108 minutes
Genre:  Thriller

In war ravaged, Allied-occupied Vienna, Austria, in the years immediately after the Second World War, racketeering thrives.  Holly Martins (Cotton), an American writer of pulp Westerns, now fallen on hard times, arrives in Vienna because his friend, Harry Lime (Welles), has offered him a job.  However, no sooner has he arrived, than he learns that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident.  With the help of Lime's girlfriend, Anna (Valli), Martins investigates his death, but becomes suspicious that it may not have been an accident.  To his horror, he learns from a British major (Howard), that Lime was a callous, murderous racketeer.

This British movie is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.  It is a suspenseful, dark thriller.  Filmed in crisp black-and-white in an almost expressionistic style with harsh light and deep, inky black shadows, and shots frequently photographed in a distorted  "Dutch angle" style, and boasting a literate, witty and intelligent script from acclaimed novelist Graham Greene, with memorable performances.  Cotton is memorable as the alcoholic novelist torn between loyalty and conscience, and Valli as the mysterious, tormented Anna.  There is also of course Orson Welles, who despite not appearing much in the film is gifted with one of the most memorable introductions to a character in the history of cinema, and two memorable speeches.  The film's ear-worm theme music by Anton Karas performed entirely on the zither became an international hit, and spent eleven weeks at the top of the US charts.  From the cynical, opening narration (spoken by an uncredited Carol Reed) which introduces the situation in Vienna at the time of the film, to the final chase through the sewers, this depicts a bleak, fallen world of betrayal, and quick violent death with little to provide light or hope.   

"You know what the fellow said, in Italy under the Borgias, they had warfare, murder, terror and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo and the Renaissance.  In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace.  And what did that produce?  The cuckoo clock."
 -Harry Lime (Orson Welles)

Orson Welles in The Third Man

Brief Encounter

Year: 1945
Director: David Lean
Screenplay: Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allen, David Lean and Ronald Neame based on the stage play Still Life by Noel Coward
Starring: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg
Running Time: 86 minutes
Genre: Drama, romance

Summary: Laura Jesson (Johnson) has a conventional life and a dull, if affectionate, marriage to Fred Jesson (Raymond). By chance, she meets an idealistic doctor, Alec Harvey (Howard) in a railway station. Alec is also married. The two strike up a friendship and are soon meeting up every week. Eventually they come to realise that they have fallen in love, but because they are both married, and the scandal that their relationship would create, they are unable to act on their feelings.

Opinions: This is one of the classic films about "forbidden love" which remains popular to this day, and is screened frequently on television. The movie is very much a product of it's time and place, and the attitudes and values that the two lead characters have, which were very common at the time, could be seen as odd by many people today.
Not much really happens in the movie, much of which consists of the characters having awkward conversations on the street and in railway cafes. The performances are very good from the two leads, who create a strong impression of powerful emotions barely repressed. It's one of the classic evocations of the traditional British "stiff upper lip".
The screenplay, based on a one-act stage play by Noel Coward, is impressive even if some of the dialogue is slightly stilted at times, and some of the humour comes across as forced. The movie is very well-crafted and visually impressive, with crisp black and white photography, and much of it being shot on location in a busy railway station.
The film is powerfully dramatic and is definitely worth watching for it's evocation of another time and place.


"We're neither of us free to love each other. There's too much in the way. There's still time, if we control ourselves and behave like sensible human beings. There's still time."
- Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) in Brief Encounter



Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter