Review of The Third Man (1949) by Gary T — 28 Jan 2016

WOW......WOW......WOW.....WOW.......STUNNING.......BRILLIANT......AMAZING......GENIUS......SUPERB.......I HAVE JUST SEEN THIS MOVIE 4 THE 1ST TIME N THINK THAT THIS IS SUCH A FANTASTIC MOVIE 2 WATCH,......its got a good cast of actors/actresses throughout this movie......I think that joseph cotten (.R.I.P.), alida valli (.R.I.P.), orson welles (.R.I.P.), trevor howard (.R.I.P.), Bernard lee (.R.I.P.), play good roles/part throughout this movie........I think that the director of this mystery/suspense/classics movie had done a fantastic job of directing this movie because you never know what 2 expect throughout this movie.......I think that this is such a gripping/thrilling/highly suspenseful movie 2 watch as the director keeps you on the edges of your seats throughout this movie......

The atmospheric use of black-and-white expressionist cinematography by Robert Krasker, with harsh lighting and distorted "Dutch angle" camera angles, is a key feature of The Third Man. Combined with the unique theme music, seedy locations and acclaimed performances from the cast, the style evokes the atmosphere of an exhausted, cynical, post-war Vienna at the start of the Cold War. Some critics at the time criticised the film's unusual camera angles. C. A. Lejeune in The Observer described Reed's "habit of printing his scenes askew, with floors sloping at a diagonal and close-ups deliriously tilted" as "most distracting". American director William Wyler, Reed's close friend, sent him a spirit level, with a note saying, "Carol, next time you make a picture, just put it on top of the camera, will you?".

Box office.

In the United Kingdom, The Third Man was the most popular film at the British box office for 1949. In Austria, "local critics were underwhelmed", and the film ran for only a few weeks. Still, the Viennese Arbeiter-Zeitung, although critical of a "not-too-logical plot", praised the film's "masterful" depiction of a "time out of joint" and the city's atmosphere of "insecurity, poverty and post-war immorality". William Cook, after his 2006 visit to an eight-room museum in Vienna dedicated to the film, wrote "In Britain it's a thriller about friendship and betrayal. In Vienna it's a tragedy about Austria's troubled relationship with its past.".

Critical reception.

Upon its release in Britain and America, the film received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Time magazine said that the film was "crammed with cinematic plums that would do the early Hitchcock proud-ingenious twists and turns of plot, subtle detail, full-bodied bit characters, atmospheric backgrounds that become an intrinsic part of the story, a deft commingling of the sinister with the ludicrous, the casual with the bizarre." Bosley Crowther, after a prefatory qualification that the film was "designed [only] to excite and entertain", wrote that Reed "brilliantly packaged the whole bag of his cinematic tricks, his whole range of inventive genius for making the camera expound. His eminent gifts for compressing a wealth of suggestion in single shots, for building up agonized tension and popping surprises are fully exercised. His devilishly mischievous humor also runs lightly through the film, touching the darker depressions with little glints of the gay or macabre." One very rare exception was the British communist paper Daily Worker (later the Morning Star), which complained that "no effort is spared to make the Soviet authorities as sinister and unsympathetic as possible.".

Critics today have hailed the film as a masterpiece. Roger Ebert added the film to his "Great Movies" list and wrote, "Of all the movies that I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies." In a special episode of Siskel & Ebert in 1994 discussing film villains, Ebert named Lime as his favourite film villain. Gene Siskel remarked that it was an "exemplary piece of moviemaking, highlighting the ruins of World War II and juxtaposing it with the characters' own damaged histories". James Berardinelli has also praised the film, calling the film a "must-see" for lovers of film noir.

WARNING THIS MOVIE CONTAIN STROBE LIGHTNING EFFECTS THROUGHOUT SOME SCENES THORUGHOUT THIS MOVIE........man this is such a gripping enjoyable movie 2 watch, its got such a fantastic cast throughout this movie, it is such a classics thriller movie 2 watch with a brilliant cast throughout this movie.......