All language subtitles for Classic.Movies.The.Story.Of.S01E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

I never knew the old Vienna before
the war,

with its Strauss music, its glamour
and easy charm.

Constantinople suited me better.

I really got to know it in the
classic period of the black market.

We'd run anything if people wanted
it enough and had the money to pay.

I don't know what type of film it
is, really.

Is it a film noir?

Is it a thriller?

Is it a drama? Is it a love story?

It's everything, really.

It's just...perfect...

..for the time it was in.

Vienna doesn't really look any worse
than a lot of other European cities.

Bombed about a bit. Oh, I was going
to tell you.

Wait, I was going to tell you about
Holly Martins,

an American, came all the way here
to visit a friend of his.

The name was Lime. Harry Lime. Now
Martins was broken.

Lime had offered him some sort, I
don't know, some sort of a job.

Anyway, there he was, poor chap.
Happy as a lark, and without a cent.

(ZITHER MUSIC PLAYS)

The Third Man, one of the greatest
film noir's ever made.

Directed by Carol Reed, starring the
inimitable Orson Welles,

and set in a haunting, war-torn
Vienna of 1949.

There are few films that can match
the atmosphere and mystery.

Produced by Alexander Korda, it is
a film of many gifts.

Novelist-turned-screenwriter
Graeme Greene's furtive plot,

as strange and twisting as the
ruined Vienna streets,

the timeless style of Welles'
villain Harry Lime,

and the poignancy of Joseph Cotten's
fumbling hero Holly Martins,

the shimmering notes of Anton
Karas' zither on the score,

and the expressionist magnificence
of Robert Krasker's cinematography

transforming a city into a realm of
dancing shadows.

(ZITHER PLAYS)

Vienna is today a city that lies
dreaming of its imperial past,

its houses and old churches stand
unchanged

by the passage of centuries.

(WALTZ PLAYS)

This is Vienna, once the jewel of an
empire,

home to composers, philosophers and
artists.

A city for coffee and chocolate
cake.

(BELLS RING)

This was the great metropolis that
made a Faustian pact with Hitler,

a city left defeated at the end of
the war,

and occupied by the four victorious
powers -

France, Britain, America and Russia.

It was a place enshrouded in
contradiction and conflict.

In 1949, it was bombed about a bit.

Rubble and ruins scarred the
classical architecture.

People didn't live. They survived.

It was here that Alexander Korda
would decide to set his ambitious

and highly international film
project The Third Man.

It was either going to be Vienna or
Rome, in fact,

because he really wanted to address

the sort of post-war situation in
Europe.

He could see it, first of all, as a
thriller,

but it would give him a broader
canvas, something that

might look deeper into the effects
of the war

on societies, on European society.

Graham Greene came up with a basic
idea

that he'd actually written on an
envelope 20 years earlier,

which was a simple paragraph about a
man

who'd just been to the funeral of
his best friend,

is walking along the strand, and he
sees him alive,

walking down the street, completely
unacknowledged.

The Third Man is one of my favourite
films of all time.

Not for the...necessarily for the
conventional reasons.

What I love about this film is that
it was created

out of convenience, and there were
reasons

for doing this film which were not
to create a classic.

They were to save money or they were
to capitalise

on foreign exchange problems, and
all of these little shortcuts

and these little routines that they
went through

in order to blag this or to organise
that,

and out of this chaos and disorder,

they built one of the greatest films
of all time.

Angela Allen worked as a script
supervisor on the Third Man,

and got to witness the Vienna of
1949

captured so vividly on the
screen.

What would you say was Alexander
Korda's motivation

for setting a film in Vienna?

I think to use up the money that was
in Vienna

from the previous films he'd made
there before the war.

Because of course, before the war,
he'd made films in Vienna

and he'd come to England as a
Hungarian emigre, hadn't he?

Yes, he had to leave Hungary, and...

..he'd been through various
countries

and I think had made various films
in Austria.

Do you think that gave him, as a
producer,

a sort of sense of international
cinema

rather than just British cinema?

Oh, I think so, very definitely.

And I think he had a tremendous
entrepreneurial gift

and he'd learned how to use it over
the years.

My fellow film reviewer and film
historian Derek Malcolm

knew all three of the key figures
behind The Third Man's creation -

Carol Reed, Graham Greene and
Alexander Korda.

How would you describe Sir Alexander
Korda's style of filmmaking?

Well, he wanted to be big and
better,

or at least as good as Hollywood.

And that was he felt...that the
British cinema was introspective

and...and wasn't capable of doing
anything really big.

And he wanted to be Korda from
England AND Hollywood.

And he got his way in a way.

He was an amazing man.

And he didn't interfere with
directors too much either.

Once he got them on trust, he kept
his trust, you know.

And I thought that was pretty good.

Korda was a remarkable man.Yeah.

There's no doubt about it. And when
he died,

a lot left the British film
industry, I think.

And what was it like in Vienna
in 1948 when you were there?

What was it like? We see the film's
version of Vienna,

but what was it like for you being
there?

Well, it was a very restricted
country for anybody

unless you were in the military.

There was only one hotel we could
stay in as a film unit,

but also other people, because
everything else

was in a different zone, and you had
to be in the military.

The rubble was up to the second
floor on the Karntner Strasse,

the main sort of street or whatever
you like to call it.

The Opera House had been bombed. It
was a bombed-out city.

So what we see on screen is
realistic.

Oh, completely. There was no set
dressing of the streets of Vienna.

Korda had struck gold with his
partnership

of director Carol Reed and the
novelist Graham Greene.

Greene had positively reviewed
Reed's early film work,

and Korda was able to bring their
talents together,

first in London before venturing out
to Vienna.

So Graham Greene started out as a
film critic

in the 1930s, and became well-known

for some very strongly worded
and opinionated pieces

about American film in particular.

By the 1940s, he was also a
novelist,

and his novel The Fallen Idol
was adapted in part by himself

for the screen, along with producer
Alexander Korda

and by director Carol Reed,

which of course, would become the
great trio

who would go on to make The Third
Man.

What was Graham Greene's involvement
in the film industry in the 1940s?

Well, I think he got into it
gradually,

like a lot of people, you know.

He had to learn his craft.

It was very different to writing
books.

And he... I think he gradually
realised

that he wanted to really have his
own script for a film,

and eventually he did.

And I don't think he regretted it
for a moment,

but I think it was a learning
progress, don't you?

Yes. Yes.Like everybody in the film
business,

you know, you got in small,
gradually developed

and then you got trusted by people
just like Carol Reed.

Yes.

All that was left was to cast the
lead roles.

Joseph Cotten signed on for the
protagonist Holly Martins.

But there would be an anxious wait
for the elusive Orson Welles,

who was playing Harry Lime.

Passport, please. What's the purpose
of your visit here?

A friend of mine offered me a job
here.Where are you staying?

With him. 15 Stiffgasse.His name?

Lime. Harry Lime.

OK.Thought he'd be here to meet me.

(ZITHER MUSIC)

Can you tell me...

who's...

Fella called Lime.

Now, I think before he even got to
set,

Orson Welles was already as elusive
as Harry Lime, wasn't he?

He was late, and he was either
delaying his arrival...

What was it like for you on set,
waiting for Orson?

Well, we all knew,

you know, we had a schedule and he
was supposed to be

in certain shots, and then they'd
phone him.

I think he was in Paris, and then
they sent a man to get him in Paris.

So of course he flew to Rome.

Then he flew to Rome, and he's gone
back to somewhere else.

And eventually he turned up, and his
very first shot in the film

was when he's walking through the
Prater

on his way to the wheel scene.

So what did Carol Reed do to, you
know,

facilitate having Harry Lime in his
film

when there was no Orson Welles
there?

Well, at one point...of course, it
was night shooting,

and he was supposed to be there.

And he turned to his wonderful
assistant

and protege Guy Hamilton and said,

"You're going to have to run and
double for him,

but you're too slim, so put a coat
hanger in the overcoat and a hat."

And so Guy had to run, was the
shadow sort of running up the road.

And... So that when Orson did
appear,

he really had no alternative but to
wear the hat

and the coat because it had been,
you know, established.

I gather Orson Welles had been
incredibly elusive

and, you know, across Europe,

and they finally got him to set.
Yes.

I mean, when he when he was in Rome,
"No, he's just left for Florence."

And then he was in Florence. "No,
he's just left for Nice."

They finally caught him up in Nice.

And he said he'd come and do the
film.

But he made a big mistake, because
he actually took his salary,

which he wanted badly to make
Othello.

That was why he did the film.

He wanted to make Othello. He hadn't
got enough money.

He made a big mistake, took a salary
instead of a piece of the film.

If it has a piece of the film, he
could have made Othello twice over.

The key figure in securing Orson
Welles for the role

of Harry Lime had been the film's
co-producer David O. Selznick.

So David O. Selznick came in on the
picture

sort of to meet Korda halfway,

became American-British
co-production of sorts.

And Selznick did lend some major
sort of firepower to the cast.

He wanted the film to appeal to
American audiences,

and he had both Joseph Cotten and
Alida Valli under contract.

So he insisted upon those two in the
main parts.

He was also able to help wrangle
Orson Welles,

who, of course, became iconic in the
part of Harry Lime.

So part of that was simply

commercial decision on Selznick's
part.

But Selznick also had his
difficulties and his downsides.

He was a notorious micro-manager.

He could be really just kind of
constantly overbearing,

over the shoulders of filmmakers
and creatives.

And perhaps one of the most lucky
things about the Third Man

was that Carol Reed and their
creative team

were all the way in Vienna, very far
from Hollywood.

And so they got over 40 pages of
memos from Selznick

that they just sort of binned
without even looking at,

because, you know, he wanted to
change the name

to A Night In Vienna, and all sorts
of kind of unnecessary changes

that were thankfully duly ignored.

What is so ingenious about Greene's
script

is that we feel we know Harry Lime
before we ever set eyes on him.

Nearly every scene revolves around
the shape-shifting villain,

lover, friend, racketeer,

elusive spirit of the Viennese
night.

And he's played by Orson Welles,

to say the least, who needed a
dramatic entrance.

The arrival of Welles actually
changed everything

because when he did appear as Harry
Lime,

it was the film's best revelation.

You've been working up to the idea
that this was a man

who was a seedy monster, and the
first time

in one of the great entrances of any
film,

you see Harry Lime caught in the
light from a window

in a darkened doorway...

Joseph Cotten has been rushing
around Vienna

trying to understand what happened
to his friend Harry,

the great sort of nervous energy
that he brings to this search.

He's in love with Anna, Harry Lime's
girlfriend

who wants nothing to do with him.

There's a particular point in the
film where he finally accepts

it's all over, he's going to go back
to America.

Everything is resolved.

Now, we've been set up at this point
with Anna's apartment having a cat,

and she's told Joseph Cotten

the only person this cat likes is
Harry Lime.

Then Cotten walks into the street
and he sees a figure in the shadows.

We can't see this figure at all, we
can just see his feet,

and we can see the cat is licking
the boots of this man.

Now, that's the first clue we get as
to who we're going to be seeing.

This is a way to indicate to us

who's about to emerge from the
shadows.

(ZITHER MUSIC)

(MIAOWING)

What kind of a spy do you think you
are?

What are you tailing me for?

(FOOTSTEPS)

Cat got your tongue?

Come on out.

Come out, come out, whoever you are.

Of course the other legendary scene
in The Third Man

is the entrance of Harry Lime,

which I think is probably the
greatest entrance in film history.

Oh, I agree with you entirely.

Nobody could have a better
entrance.

Well, it was shot in the doorway in
Vienna,

and I thought it was incredibly well
lit.

Well, you couldn't get a much better
cameraman than Robert Krasker.

But there were sort of, like all
things in films,

there were sort of bits and pieces
done at the studio

and bits done on location.

How did it break down? If we were
looking to analyse it, what's where?

Well, the cat, although there was a
cat,

you know, in, say, the long shot,

but of course they used the close up
for his entrance,

and then to get the cat to look up
to Orson Welles,

we did that in the studio.

We had many cats, and we tried them
out.

No, maybe he'd like fish paste. No,
he doesn't like fish paste.

What can we try him with, and...

Everything, and when our second unit
had nothing else to do,

it was, get the cat out, get a cat.

It had to be a matching...you know,
colourwise, but...

then the cat, you know, would be
tried out as to

whether he would do anything and
react the way Carol wanted him to.

So we shot the cat quite a few
times.

So the cat was even more difficult
than Orson Welles.

Oh, definitely.

Step out in the light. Let's have a
look at you.

Who's your boss?

(WOMAN'S VOICE)

(WOMAN SPEAKS ANGRILY IN GERMAN)

Reed served up possibly the greatest
entrance in film history.

A mix of studio and location
shooting,

it is a sublime moment - Harry,
hiding in a doorway,

betrayed by the cat who adores him,

a shard of light from a window falls
across his face,

and the revelation of that Mona
Lisa smile

as if it's all a game.

Not once do we hear that magnificent
voice.

Harry.

(WOMAN CONTINUES TO SPEAK GERMAN)

Joseph Cotten runs towards him,
nearly gets run over by a car,

and he's gone, and it's just this...

Orson Welles does almost nothing.

But his smile, his stillness, and
the power

that he brings to that shot is
phenomenal.

It's one of the greatest entrances
in movie history.

I don't know what Carol Reed's sort
of

descriptions were of the scenes,

but there's such wonderful sense of
enigma in that moment,

because you have Orson Welles, who
has the greatest voice in film,

and he doesn't have him say a line,
he just has him smile.

Oh, well, yes, and then,

as they all say, less is more.

And it didn't need any words.

It was just that wonderful smile.

And then off he goes.

Joseph Cotten, he has no sense of
the devastation.

He has no sense of the kind of
reality of life after war.

He is still living in a kind of

Hollywood dream of the perfect
world.

He is not disillusioned.

Everyone else around him have had
all their illusions shattered.

And it's the journey that he takes

from being this man who is just
bewildered...

I mean, he's absolutely bewildered
by what's going on,

he's bewildered by the fact that his
friend's dead.

Apparently. He's bewildered by the
fact that he's not dead then,

apparently, he's bewildered by the
fact he doesn't understand anybody

because when they speak in German -

and this was Carol Reed's decision -

there was no subtitles.

So if they speak in German, we the
audience,

unless we speak German, are in
exactly the same position as Holly.

We don't know what they're talking
about.

So this gives you a great sense of
alienation.

And he does. He's a stranger in a
strange land.

And yet he persists. Yet he falls in
love.

Yet he does all the things that his
heart tells him to

until finally he is confronted with
the very, very horrific reality

of what his friend has done, and
that is his loss of innocence.

That's when he actually becomes
European.

Hello, old friend! How are you?
Hello, Harry.

Well, well, I seem to giving you
quite some busy time.

Yes.I want to talk to you.Talk to
me?

Of course. Come on.

Kids used to ride this a lot in the
old days. They have no money now.

(WOMAN ASKS QUESTION IN GERMAN,
HARRY REPLIES)

Listen, Harry, I didn't believe it.

Good to see you, Holly.Was at your
funeral.

It was pretty smart, wasn't it?

The great wheel of the Prater had
somehow survived the war

and it stood amidst the ruins, a
symbol of a city's delusion.

It is the perfect location of a
meeting of old friends

and now foes, Holly Martins and
Harry Lime.

As the wheel turns, we circle
through the charms

and manipulation of Harry's
desperation.

Would he really be willing to kill
his friend?

It is here that Welles' voice is the
amoral philosophy of his character.

Holly is a naive American who is
beset

by the horrors of the aftermath of
war,

and also the idea that his best
friend is a racketeer,

and yet he finds the gumption to
actually challenge him,

finally, in the great Ferris wheel.

And that is one of the key scenes,

because you realise that underneath
that sort of innocent figure,

there is a good stout heart, that he
is prepared

to actually challenge his friend.

And they have the wonderful sort of
debate about what human beings are.

And then you see Harry Lime in his
true colours when he looks down,

and he offers him a deal, almost
like the devil,

saying, "These aren't human beings.
These are just people.

If I offered you $20,000 and one of
those dots disappeared,

would you take it?

If I offered you $40,000 would you
take it?"

This is a very, very tense moment
because

it's done not with any kind of huge
drama.

It's done with quite quiet dialogue,

and you can tell on the faces of the
two men

that they're playing this sort of
very, very dangerous game.

Wonderful, wonderful moment, one
of the key moments

in not just this film, but any film,
actually.

Joseph Cotten is the perfect Holly
Martins,

because as an actor in America,
he's...

..he had built a reputation playing
those sorts of characters,

those sort of figures of American
manhood.

They were usually heroic, but they
had a slight hint of darkness.

He'd played with Orson Welles before
in Citizen Kane,

the man who'd been slightly
enraptured by Citizen Kane,

but then sort of had the scales fall
from his eyes.

And so he brings to the role of the
author of Pulp westerns

a certain Western sensibility, in a
way.

As an actor, he's got a slight,
slight element

of the cowboy to him, and so he's
out of his depth completely.

And... Again, this is an actor who
is

as much the part himself as you
could wish.

You know, he brings all of those
qualities -

the naive American, the man who's
used to playing the good guy,

who expects everything to fall into
place,

and who's suddenly finding that the
answers

aren't coming, the results aren't
coming.

There's a great trope in Westerns,

which is when your buddy betrays
you, what do you do?

And in the final shootout, you'll
always shoot him dead.

But the point about The Third Man is
what will Holly do?

And in the end, he can't quite shoot
his buddy dead as a Western can.

And we see him falling apart.

We see him losing his grip on the
true stories

that he's expected to tell, that
he's written,

and that he's performed as an actor.

Holly, I'd like to cut you in, old
man.

There's nobody left in Vienna I
can really trust

and we've always done everything
together.

When you make up your mind, send me
a message.

I'll meet you any place, any time.

And when we do meet, old man, it's
you I want to see, not the police.

So another...I suppose story that,
you know,

comes from the making of The Third
Man

is how much Orson Welles did or
didn't contribute to the script.

In particular, the scene on the
Great Wheel in the Prater.

He gave Carol quite a hard time on
that scene, which, of course,

was his biggest scene in the film.

But no, he did not write the script
for it.

It was the Graham Greene script,

and I think one has decided to give
him the credit

for the cuckoo clock line.

Don't be so gloomy. After all, it's
not that awful.

Remember what the fella said - in
Italy for 30 years under the Borgias

they had warfare, terror, murder and
bloodshed,

but they produced Michelangelo,

Leonardo da Vinci and the
Renaissance.

In Switzerland they had brotherly
love,

they had 500 years of democracy and
peace.

And what did that produce?

The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly.

(ZITHER PLAYS)

The rumours that he messed with the
script are not true,

except for his famous speech about
the Swiss

and making only the cuckoo clock.

The Swiss objected because actually
they never made a cuckoo clock

in their lives in Switzerland.

It's all done in Bavaria,
apparently.

But anyway, that was a wonderful
speech.

Yes.Everybody remembers. And that
was Orson Welles.

There's no doubt about that. As
Carol Reed has said.

But otherwise, he didn't deflect
from the script at all,

and nor did he interfere with the
direction at all.

He trusted Reed, and Reed trusted
him in the end.

Yeah.

In the last war, a general would
hang

his opponent's picture on the
wall.

He got to know him that way. I'm
beginning to know Lime.

I think this would have worked with
your help.

What price would you pay?

Name it.

And of course the other cast was
Trevor Howard. And he's always good.

He keeps on recurring in Carol
Reed's films.

Always good. He was excellent in
this, as was Bernard Lee.

They were the British officer and
the sergeant

who tried to persuade Holly to go
away

because there was something evil
happening.

They are almost kind of the moral
voice in the film, aren't they?

Yes, they are - they're the moral
voice of the film.

I don't think it's a morality tale.

Well, perhaps it is. Do you think it
is?

I think it's an exploration of
morality.

Maybe the lack of morality in the
post-war Europe.Yes.

Because Europe in those days was not
only devastated, but also

a breeding ground for criminality,

and all sorts of things were
happening.

It was a difficult time for Europe,
and I think

he caught that remarkably well.

(ZITHER MUSIC PLAYS)

Viennese families dream only of the
city's imperial past

when they relax in the outdoor wine
taverns.

One of director Carol Reed's
boldest decisions

which helped capture the feeling of
post-war Vienna

was his use of a local musician for
the film's score,

Anton Karas.

So the apocryphal story goes that
Anton Karas was playing

in a traditional wine bar in Vienna,
and Carol Reed came in

and heard him and knew that that
instrument,

the zither, and Anton Karas were
perfect for The Third Man

and apparently recorded him in a
hotel room.

And of course, it plays that theme,
that music plays

throughout almost the entirety of
the film.

And the Harry Lime theme would end
up being a huge hit

and sell half a million copies in
1949.

And of course, there's the music.

Anton Karas' glorious zither.

And everyone claims to have been
responsible for finding him.

I know. Trevor Howard insists he
found him in a cafe.

Carol Reed - "No, I found him."

But whatever they did, they were
lucky, weren't they?They were.

And they went completely against the
style of music of the time.

Absolutely. It was a real original
touch because nobody else

had thought to do that sort of
thing.

They hadn't even heard of the zither
at the time.

But it became a sort of a top ten
tune, didn't it?

Yeah.

And the funny thing was that Carol
Reed said

they couldn't get quite the timbre
right.

And he put him under his kitchen
table, and it became better.

I don't know... The wood was
somehow...

I have no idea about it.

But anyway, he said that it was so
good under the kitchen table

that he took the kitchen table onto
the set

and he put him - Anton Karas -
underneath.

And that's how they did the score.

I mean, it sounds like a complete
white lie,

but Carol swears that's what
happened.

And what do you know of the
discovery

of Anton Karas and that zither
music?

Carol Reed and Guy Hamilton had been
out

having a drink or...after...

obviously after shooting in, I
think, Grinzing.

And then Carol said, "Oh, you know,
that was interesting."

And Guy then went back and found the
musician

who'd been playing that night, who
was Anton Karas,

and brought him to the hotel where
he played the zither for Carol.

And Carol decided he was going to
use zither music in the film.

Even Korda, I think, was against it

because he had Muir Mathieson lined
up.

And I think later Selznick,

who really didn't have any input
into things, was kind of furious.

But Carol really stuck to his guns.

And what I think was amusing was
that Carol

didn't speak a word of German,

and Anton didn't speak a word of
English,

but they seemed to get on very well.

And I think he stayed in Carol's
house

when he was composing, or learning
how to score a film.

After all, he'd never done anything
but play in a bar.

(ZITHER MUSIC PLAYS)

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

Nein, danke. Nein.

Now, in historical terms, The Third
Man is set at remarkable times.

Although it's a film about a black
marketeer and a criminal,

it seems to hint toward the world of
espionage,

scuffling through tunnels, crossing
borders.

Yes.A sort of new genre was sort of
being born with The Third Man.

Yes. It's difficult to say what film
it is.

Is it a love story, a drama, a
thriller?

It's a bit of everything, isn't it,
really?

But the whole thing, I think...the
triumph is the atmosphere.

Yes.And you've got to say that
wonderfully shot by Robert Krasker.

Absolutely wonderful.

I'm glad he got the Oscar, because
no-one deserved it more than he did.

One of the interesting things about
The Third Man

is it's created by spies - by
Graeme Greene and Alexander Korda,

who worked in the Second World War,
and it's created

just at the beginning of the Cold
War,

because as the film was being made,
the Iron Curtain was going up.

There were revolutions, Communist
revolutions in Eastern Europe,

and the beginning of the world of
the spy was taking place.

But this film is not about that.

Though it's set in Vienna, which is
at the heart of the espionage world,

Vienna and Berlin was where so many
of the espionage stories were told.

It is looking back, it's looking at

what's been left behind by the
Second World War.

So it's at a pivotal moment in
history,

and it tells us about what's
happened, where we are.

And in many ways, it lets us know
why

Europe moved in the way it was about
to move.

I mean, Anna, she walks towards the
Russians,

and away from the Americans at the
end of the film,

and it's a very significant step.

Where do you turn? And this is
clearly a prophetic movie

in so many ways, a prophetic movie
where Lime talks about

the corruption, and the future, but
it's also about

why Europe will be uncertain about
whose side it's on

for the next 40 years, because who
really is going to look after

this bedraggled country, this
bedraggled woman?

So it's a film which is a pre-Cold
War movie

and helps us understand the Cold War
movies that are to come.

What is fascinating about the way
that Carol Reed

and his cinematographer Robert
Krasker

filmed The Third Man is they draw on
so many elements of the past.

Film noir, certainly, but they go
back even further.

They go back almost to German
expressionism.

They go to the Italian neo-realists,

I would say in some shots they
even go back to Eisenstein

and the Russians with the sort of
fantastic close-ups of weird faces,

the crazy angles, the sort of tilted
camera,

which is known as the Dutch angle,
the wide angle lenses,

and above all the way the city is
lit

and the chiaroscuro shadows.

All of this is all germane to what
we now know as film noir,

which is an umbrella term, it's not
a genre,

but this is actually pushed to its
absolute extreme

in this film, and it creates an
atmosphere that is both

realistic and dreamlike
simultaneously,

and that is remarkable.

Do you believe, Mr Martins, in the
stream of consciousness?

Stream of consciousness? Well...

Well...What author has chiefly
influenced you?

Grey.Grey? What Grey?

Zane Grey.Oh, that's Mr Martins'
little joke.

Of course, we all know perfectly
well Zane Grey

wrote what we call Westerns -
cowboys and bandits.

Mr James Joyce. Now, where would you
put him?

Would you mind repeating that
question?

I said, where would you put Mr James
Joyce? In what category?

Can I ask, is Mr Martins engaged on
a new book?

So many directors talk about The
Third Man in ways

that you wouldn't even expect.

So there are films like Miller's
Crossing,

the crime film by the Coen Brothers,

which visually references The Third
Man a lot.

But even outside of crime or horror,

or the kind of genres you might
expect to

take influence from The Third Man,

there are directors like Clint
Eastwood who said

the lighting of The Third Man
inspired Unforgiven, his Western.

People like Martin Scorsese, who've
written

sort of essays and odes to how much
he loved the film

when he first saw it as a kid on TV
in the 1950s.

And so it is a film where the legacy
lives on

beyond just where you would expect
in many ways.

And the theme music, of course, was
also a huge influence

on Nino Rota for La Dolce Vita.

So the music as well has really
lived a full life since 1949.

It quite frightened me in parts. I
felt uneasy.

Yes.

But I think there is a lot of
romance in it.

Yeah.

But it's... It's really a flawless
film of its kind, I think.Yes.

There's nothing to match The Third
Man.

All right.

(GUNFIRE)

Now, there's obviously a myth around
Orson Welles

and his participation, and how
complicated

he might have been to work with.

But in terms of the sewers, can you
maybe give us

a picture of what Orson Welles was
and wasn't

willing to do in terms of filming?

Well, the first time Orson was
required in the sewers,

he was required for a close-up.

And when it was ready, they called
him and he came down.

But he saw the crew, including Joe
Cotten,

Trevor Howard, eating sandwiches...

..and went sort of berserk and
said

this was unhygienic, disgusting.

And they just got the close-up.

And he utterly refused to ever go
down the sewers again.

And for that reason, Vincent Korda,
who was the art director,

had to build a set in London.

It's easy in hindsight to say it was
a classic

and all those things, because we've
seen the film, but...

did you sense a certain kind of
magic under way

as you watched scenes being shot?

No, I don't think so.

When you're working in films, you
always hope that the end product

will be successful and enjoyed by
the public,

but no, we all just hoped the film
would be a success.

We had no idea.

I mean, the whole film is pretty
bleak, isn't it?

Yes.

I mean, the whole atmosphere of the
film is quite frightening.

I find it. And Holly... this writer
of Westerns

is coming into this...he didn't
understand at all.

But in a way, Holly was us, because
we didn't realise

Europe was like that in those days.

(CHILD'S VOICE)
What is it?

Porter's been murdered.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

(SHE SPEAKS IN GERMAN)
They think you did it.

It was a bleak, quite forbidding
place.

It hadn't really reached the
post-war years

when everything got better
economically.

It was right down, and that was...it
was a portrait of Europe.

I don't think I've ever seen another
film,

which wasn't a documentary

which was so good at painting what
Europe was in those years.

Of course, you have a romance that
isn't a romance at the centre.

Yes.With Alida Valli.Yes.

The Third Man is a film that starts
and ends

with the same man's funeral

back here at the Zentralfriedhof
cemetery

in another shot cemented into film
history.

Holly will wait for Anna,

still a fool for love, despite
everything.

What are your memories of shooting
the final scene of the Third Man,

which is another that has sort of
become part of its mythology?

Well, it was my unit that shot that,
so I do remember it rather vividly.

Carol said to Guy, "Put her back
there."

And we did take one.

And she walks. And she walks.

Take two - "Put her further back,
Guy."

And then it was the third take.

"Put her further back, Guy."

And... Which he did.

And she did the walk.

The office was saying, "You have to
cover it, Carol."

And he said no.

And there was no way he was going to
cover it.

That was his idea and his decision.

And personally, I think it was the
right one.

Because I think from legend, Graham
Greene wanted a happy ending.

And in Graham Greene's novella, it's
a happy ending.

But it was Carol who said, "No, no,
no.

It has to be her walking past him

and sort of past the camera and out
of the shot.

Yes, it was, and he wouldn't do an
alternative take at all.

Well, Selznick didn't like the
ending, that's for sure.

And I don't think Korda did much
either.

In fact, Graham Greene was doubtful,
too.

But Carol wanted it that way,

and in the end, Greene agreed with
him and thought it was right.

Funny thing is that Holly, I mean,
he didn't know what was happening.

Joseph Cotten was sitting there
waiting for the director to say cut.

He didn't, and he kept on smoking
his cigarette as the girl went past.

And he was still smoking, he
thought,

"What am I going to do? What am I
supposed to do?"

Finally, when Carol said cut...

"Oh, thank God."

Had no idea it was going to be so
difficult.

He didn't know what the ending was
going to be, apparently.

So... But it was a coup, the
ending, I think he was right too,

And it made the film a little bit
darker.

(ZITHER PLAYS)

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