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