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)
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