I just watched _The Third Man_ in full for the first time

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oh, greene be hating his clueless americans for sure

blount's comment about capitalism is probably the unintentional answer to my question about the decline of reed

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 02:37 (seventeen years ago) link

8 men out is ken burns crossed with 'major league'

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 04:53 (seventeen years ago) link

i.e. it's the greatest movie ever?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 05:12 (seventeen years ago) link

it's the greatest movie ever crossed with ken burns

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 05:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Laverly. Though the squaddie didn't deserve to get it at the end.

― S- (sgh), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 05:43 (seventeen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

The closest thing to this movie I ever came across was the Ian McEwan novel The Innocent.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:30 (seventeen years ago) link

you should read 'a german reqiuem' by philip kerr. it's this really dark, bleak noir detective novel set in vienna in 1947, it has moments that are homages to the film, and even casually mentions the filming of 'the third man' to add a bit of local color. (you should read the first two in the trilogy beforehand, though: 'march violets' and 'the pale criminal').

― gear (gear), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:39 (seventeen years ago) link

did you redd the child in time, rudd?

― a name means a lot just by itself (lfam), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:41 (seventeen years ago) link

The romantic ideal of the unattaiable woman is the romantic ideal of peace, or harmony, or (especially) simplicity. It's the delusion of a person who is basically stupid.

Yes! One of the film's subtlties is that as an audience we initially identify with Holly because he's curious and vulgar (the Innocent Abroad of Henry James' nightmares, 50 years later); then we retract our empathy slowly as Reed builds suspense to Lime's first appearance, after which it disappears entirely -- Lime is so much more attractive and intelligent than poor compassionate Holly Martens -- until the conclusion. It's the tragedy of a virtuous dull man

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:47 (seventeen years ago) link

No, I didn't read any of that stuff, but I did read Kerr's Philosophical Investigation, which started out really well, but then ran out of gas, so I never bothered with the German trilogy. Maybe I'll give him another try.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:56 (seventeen years ago) link

The gal who played the tart in Fallen Idol
So foxy.

(though I didn't find Fallen Idol as interesting as The Third Man. As a thriller, brilliant, as a movie less so.)

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:57 (seventeen years ago) link

gear i've never heard of those books. they look great!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 11 August 2006 01:11 (seventeen years ago) link

best part is when alida valli is credited only as

VALLI

in the opening credits

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 11 August 2006 01:37 (seventeen years ago) link

know her only as "Valli."

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 01:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Suddenly I am being subjected to a difficult-to-shake nightmarish vision of Udo Kier rupturing the frame and appearing out of nowhere in The Third Man, maybe popping out of the sewer, maybe in an even more diabolical surprise somewhere else.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 01:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Timely revival, this just showed up via netflix.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:32 (seventeen years ago) link

It's on TCM again next week. Courtesy of the HQ-BMT.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I have "F for Fake" checked out from the library.

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:34 (seventeen years ago) link

gear i've never heard of those books. they look great!!

Let me second that!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:35 (seventeen years ago) link

RFI: Why Does Ulysses Get All Yessed Out In The Last Chapter?
Bizarro ****SPOILER****
I thought one of the fakes was gonna be that SHE WAS A MAN, BABY!, but it turned out that she was all woman.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:36 (seventeen years ago) link

the thing about The Fallen Idol,

is the ridiculously tragic final scene. I can't think of another film with such an emotional denouement.

(I can, actually. Etre Et Avoir, for the final look on the teacher's face.)

― Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link

In the same way that The Third Man is the definitive film about the difference between American, British and Continental ways of being, The Fallen Idol is the definitive film about how children see and know everything going on around them, without necessarily knowing that they know.

Just saying.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:49 (seventeen years ago) link

six months pass...

I saw it last night. Hooray! So great, just me and some McEwan's and the DVD remote - when it was over I watched some scenes a few more times. One of my favorite shots - when Cotten first sees Welles and then chases him down this small street and Welles's running shadow on the wall becomes flickery and evil-looking. The ferris wheel scene. THE DEATH SCENE - WAU. Fucking gripping. The ambiguous nod right before the shot is fired - begging for mercy or accepting fate?

Very much a British take - the American is dumb and naive but comes around in the end, the Brit is more world-weary but highly moral, and the rest are sort of a shadowy bunch, either victims, frightened bystanders, or evil.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link

BTW does the Criterion Collection usually have two discs, one with widescreen? I got one disc from Netflix, no widescreen. WTF?

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:06 (seventeen years ago) link

It's not a widescreen movie. Original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

The moment where Welles is revealed and alarm, embarrassment and resignation cross his features in an instant is one of my all-time favourite screen scenes.

― stet, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

You forgot devilish smirking. "Ain't I a stinkah?"

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:13 (seventeen years ago) link

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, priceless facial expression - it's like "Oh fuck...oh shit...but ya gotta love me!"

I started to think Jack Black's entire non-slapstick acting repertoire comes from doing bad imitations of Orson Welles in this film.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

Great pussycat innuendo in the scene right before that -- "He only liked Harry"

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Also the awesome shot where the camera pulls through the flowers on the windowsill.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:18 (seventeen years ago) link

YES

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Opening sequence - narrator talking about amateurs that don't know how to run a racket over shot of body floating in river.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I watched The Third Man for the first time a couple of years ago in Vienna. Fuckin' a.

― Roz, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:22 (seventeen years ago) link

The rubble of bombed buildings plays a huge part in the film.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:23 (seventeen years ago) link

That the rubble was real and shot on location adds weight, too.

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link

srsly: my favorite movie.

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:26 (seventeen years ago) link

SPOILER ALERT:
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Question: So is the "third man" is actually the orderly? How does that work? Lime's driver pretends to hit lime with the car, lime plays dead, they carry him across the street, but then how does the orderly come into play in that sequence of events?

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

No, dude. The third man is Lime himself, and the dead man is really dead, and is Joseph Harbin.

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I think this has my favourite ending of any film. Just last month while I watched someone walk up the long road away from my flat and out of my life forever, I thought "This is just like the end of the 'Third Man'".

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper) on Thursday, February 19, 2004 4:37 AM

Haha I had this exact experience late last night.

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver on Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:13 (1 hour ago)
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man alive that's so so weird i was literally thinking about this exact scene an hour ago.

― pisces, Saturday, 10 March 2007 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVFNFHLMNBk

and there it is

( major SPOILERS obv)

― pisces, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Unparalleled in its awesomosity.

― ledge, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link

...and then he lights a cigarette. One of the best single shots in all of movies? Not to be grandiose, but.

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Every time I see it I hold my breath for the whole thing.

The ending shot that is, not the entire film.

― ledge, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:23 (seventeen years ago) link

But it's such a long shot! Breathe, duder. It's better for you.

― kenan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Well I don't make a habit of it for other long single shots. Or I'd have expired a couple of years ago from asphyxiation due to watching Russian Ark.

― ledge, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:32 (seventeen years ago) link

[Removed Illegal Image]

Yeah, that was my first thought but then I over-thought my way out of it. Still seems like a bizarre way of faking a death - showing up at and assisting in what is supposed to be your own murder in broad daylight. Or is he there to be witnessed crossing the street so people will think it was he that was killed? Or am I overthinking this again?

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Scorcese did an "homage" to the ending in The Departed.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 10 March 2007 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Funny about the question re: if it was a two-disc edition or not -- because now there is, or rather will be shortly:

Special Features
#
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
#
All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
Video introduction by writer-director Peter Bogdanovich
#
Two audio commentaries: one by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Tony Gilroy, and one by film scholar Dana Polan
#
Shadowing "The Third Man" (2005), a ninety-minute feature documentary on the making of the film
#
Abridged recording of Graham Greene’s treatment, read by actor Richard Clarke
#
"Graham Greene: The Hunted Man," an hour-long, 1968 episode of the BBC's Omnibus series, featuring a rare interview with the novelist
#
Who Was the Third Man? (2000), a thirty-minute Austrian documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
#
The Third Man on the radio: the 1951 “A Ticket to Tangiers” episode of The Lives of Harry Lime series, written and performed by Orson Welles; and the 1951 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of The Third Man
#
Illustrated production history with rare behind-the-scenes photos, original UK press book, and U.S. trailer
#
Actor Joseph Cotten’s alternate opening voice-over narration for the U.S. version
#
Archival footage of postwar Vienna
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A look at the untranslated foreign dialogue in the film
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PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Luc Sante, Charles Drazin, and Philip Kerr
#
Also: a web-exclusive essay on Anton Karas by musician John Doe

Some of it's from the earlier edition but hey. The John Doe piece should be good!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 16 March 2007 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link

That's going to be the one I purchase in May (if any), since I didn't think Army of Shadows was THAT fantastic, already have Vengeance is Mine and am waiting to see if Masters of Cinema include Sansho dayu in their forthcoming Mizoguchi box set (hint: they are).

― Eric H., Friday, 16 March 2007 18:23 (seventeen years ago) link

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