Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Third Man, The

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Third Man, The

    Click image for larger version

Name:	third-man.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	8.1 KB
ID:	383491

    Released by: Criterion Collection
    Releaed on: 12/16/08
    Director: Carol Reed
    Cast: Joseph Cotton, Orsen Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard
    Year: 1949
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    Carol Reed's The Third Man is widely considered a masterpiece, and rightly so. It's a beautifully shot film that's ripe with atmosphere and rich in character development. Written by Graham Greene and starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, it's a post World War II drama that's aged wonderfully and doesn't feel dated by its setting at all.

    When the film begins, the narrator laments having not seen Vienna before the war before explaining to us how the city is now divided and controlled by different factions - the French, the British, the Russians and the Americans. Into this odd mix of culture and post war politics emerges Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), a hard drinking writer of popular western novels who has arrived to meet with his friend, Harry Lime, with whom he went to college. When Martins turns up at Lime's home, however, the hired help tells him that his friend just passed away, the victim of an accident.

    Martins heads to the nearest pub to drown his sorrows in drink where he meets a British officer, Calloway (Trevor Howard), who has no kind words about Martins' late friend and who tells him to go back to home but Holly isn't so sure that the circumstances surrounding his friend's death are as normal as they seem. He starts asking questions and doing a bit of investigating on his own and soon finds that many of the details conflict, leading him to believe that something is very wrong in Austria. If that weren't reason enough to stick around, Holly's also started to fall for a foxy blonde named Anna (Alida Valdi), who may also know more than she first seems to.

    Shot on location in Austria while the country was still a shambles thanks to the war, The Third Man is an incredibly striking looking film thanks not only to the authentic locations but also to the deft cinematography of Robert Krasker. Large parts of the film are shot from rather odd angles, giving the whole film a disjointed look that suits the mystery of the central storyline quite well. The high contrast black and white works very nicely alongside the rather stark lighting employed to create a film with an incredibly unique look, one which is almost instantly identifiable, culminating in a remarkably tense chase sequence that pulls us through the sewers that line the underbelly of the city.

    Performance wise, we're in very capable hands here with Cotton playing the crotchety Martins quite perfectly. He's got a worldliness to him and a weariness to him that fits the role very well and his interplay with the rest of the talented cast is completely believable. Welles, who is barely in the film, makes an incredible impression by the time he actually does show up, making the most out of his small but incredibly important part and carving out one of the finest, if briefest, performances of his storied career.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Criterion presents The Third Man in an excellent 1.33.1 fullframe transfer in full 1080p high definition with AVC encoding in glorious black and white, just as it should be. In short, the transfer is excellent. There's a welcome coat of fine film grain present throughout but no serious print damage to note and the improvement in detail, contrast and clarity compared to previous standard definition DVD releases is instantly noticeable. Blacks are nice and strong while whites look smooth and natural, never too hot and never showing any evidence of blooming. There are no noticeable problems with mpeg compression or edge enhancement to complain about. If you want to nit-pick, you'll be able to pick up on some really minor specks here and there but for a film well past its fiftieth birthday, Criterion's efforts here are outstanding.

    The English language 24-but LPCM Mono track, which comes with optional English closed captioning, is nice and clear. The sound mix for this film plays with silence as often as it plays with noise and thankfully the subtleties of the mix come through very nicely here. There are no problems at all with hiss or distortion to note, no unnecessary background noise, and the levels are all properly balanced. The track might be a little dated compared to more modern mixes, but for an older Mono mix, this one sounds great.

    Criterion have really gone all the way with the extras on this disc, starting with the first of two commentary tracks that comes from filmmaker Steven Soderburgh who is joined by fellow director Tony Gilroy. These two are obviously quite enamored with the picture and talk about it almost reverentially at times .What makes this talk interesting is how they makes a case for its influence on modern cinema and its importance not only from a historical perspective but from a cultural one as well. The second track is from film scholar Dana Polan and not surprisingly it's a little bit dryer than the first track but no less impressive. It's packed with information about the people who made the movie, how the picture came to be, it's political ideologies, its undertones, and much more. Polan has definitely done a lot of research on the picture and it shows as it's very astutely dissected during this discussion.

    Shadowing The Third Man is a massively comprehensive feature length ninety-minute documentary from 2005 which is narrated by John Hurt. This documentary traces the history of the film from its genesis to its production through to the present day by way of some great archival photographs, clips and interview bits. This sits nicely alongside the hour long BBC documentary Graham Greene: The Hunted Man which tells the interesting real life story of the man who wrote this picture and which does a good job of putting a lot of it into context alongside his actual experiences. A third documentary, the half hour long Who Was The Third Man?, an Austrian production from 2000, features yet more interviews with the cast and crew and while it doesn't cover as much ground as the two aforementioned pieces, it's still quite interesting.

    Also included are two radio bits - an episode from the series The Lives Of Harry Lime entitled A Ticket To Tangiers from 1951 which is performed by Orson Welles and the 1951 Lux Radio Theater adaptation of The Third Man. Rounding out the extras is a theatrical trailer for the film, an illustrated production history section with a load of photos, an opening introduction to the film courtesy of Peter Bogdonavich, Joseph Cotton's alternate opening voice over narration originally used in the U.S. version, a look at the untranslated foreign dialogue in the film, an amazing photo gallery of post war Vienna, menus, and chapter stops. All of the extras are presented in HD. Inside the keepcase is a booklet featuring an essay on the film by film scholar Luc Sante, a chapter listing, and collection of credits for the film.

    The Final Word:

    An excellent presentation of a fantastic and suspenseful war time drama, Criterion's Blu-ray release of Carol Reed's The Third Man is a respectful, top notch presentation in pretty much every way and which is jam packed with some excellent extra features that compliment the main feature beautifully.
      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X