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Earlier this year, John Carpenter sat down with the fine folks at Criterion and shared his top ten films from their library. One selection that caught our collective eye is The Third Man.
Carpenter raved about this classic noir thriller, saying: “Oh, come on! You can’t get better than this movie. It’s essentially an international crime thriller, but it really has all the elements of a noir film. There’s an accident, a man is killed, and the third man turns out to be the bad guy, played by Orson Welles. The chase scenes in the sewers of Vienna are astonishing, and the use of shadows is brilliant and inspiring. It’s just an incredible movie, and once I start watching it I can’t stop—even though that zither drives me nuts.”
There you have it folks, an endorsement of a classic, iconic film from a powerhouse director. If Carpenter’s glowing review has you keen to seek the film out, you can do just that at no cost. The Third Man is streaming for free (with ads) on Tubi as of the publication of this post.
Carol Reed was at the helm of The Third Man and Graham Greene penned the screenplay. The picture stars Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, and Paul Hörbiger. The film stands as the top-grossing film at the British box office in 1949.
Interestingly, scribe Graham Greene put together a novella as a screen treatment, never intending it to see the light of day. But the tome was eventually published and released to the public under the same name as the film.
The setup for this Carpenter-endorsed classic goes as follows:
Set in postwar Vienna, Austria, “The Third Man” stars Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, who arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find him dead. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, running into interference from British officer Maj. Calloway (Trevor Howard) and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover, Anna (Alida Valli).
That’s all we have for you at present, dear reader. Please stay tuned to the site for more recommendations from your favorite cinematic luminaries as we uncover them. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter (not X) so you never miss out on an exciting update.
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