It is the story of this author, named Holly Martins, a Western wonder writer who arrives bankrupt as a guest on his childhood Harry Lime. He may have reached his childhood only to find him dead, where things now seem strange. The investigation begins with mysterious death, and thus begins in this legendary story about love, murder and everything tragic.
There's an element of show-off quality in The Third Man-it's a stylistic tour de force of bravura lighting, brilliant location shooting, dynamic imagery, and sharp angles throwing the world off kilter-but Reed rises to the challenge of Greene's script.
Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene let the story unfold slowly and deliberately, like the cigarette smoke that floats around the characters, and keep us guessing at every step.
The bombed buildings, piles of rubble and their evocative shadows form a haunting backdrop to the outdoor scenes, particularly at night. ... Greene's talent for dialogue and suspense shine. [It] has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster.
A lot funnier than you remember it, Carol Reed's immortal 1949 film noir seems to exist in the space between two worlds: an earlier time when thrillers were mostly serious affairs, and a future one, when such supremely witty entertainments felt passé.
What really makes the film sing, though, isn't the jaunty and iconic zither score by Anton Karas. It's the film's groundbreaking visual aesthetic, which combines noir tropes with expressionism to create a visual wonderland of living shadows.
By the very nature of its settings and story, there are occasional reminiscences of Lang and Hitchcock, but there is nothing borrowed or imitated. Stylistically, The Third Man is Reed's most impressive film.
Krasker's camera reveals a dank, matte, defeated city - so dully vivid as to be a character unto itself - except that this Vienna becomes something altogether different seen at night or underground.
