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

it's vonderful ze vay you keep ze tension

Ve haf to control ze intelligence from Zaigon.

http://i2.listal.com/image/2098481/600full-the-third-man-screenshot.jpg

http://www.thematinee.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/third-3.png

better img

https://catsonfilm.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/3rdman02.jpg

he only liked harry.

You're wrong about Harry. You are wrong about everything.

i wish he was dead. he would be safe from all of you then.

He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?

sorry, wrong Orson Welles character

Not Valli's fault that her character annoys the hell out of me.

You're wrong about Anna. You're wrong about everything.

:)

Not Valli's fault that her character annoys the hell out of me.
Curious as to why. She obviously doesn't follow the normal 'arc,' but I kind of dig that fact that she doesn't really like Holly too much and never warms up to him. Also was her first name ever dropped before or after this particular film credit or was that just the product of a Selznick publicity prank?

Her dislike of Holly is fine and adult and all that; I meant Valli as an actress, whose simpering is so one note.

Fair enough, but I've never really liked her in anything else- this is her best role and performance!

She's fierce (not a word I like to use on the regular) in Suspiria.

Guess I could watch Senso again.

It was her birthday two days ago.

She's cast to simper through Senso; besides, I'm ogling at Farley Granger.

Have the impression that at some later point she was cast or typecast as evil housekeeper types, like Dame Judith Anderson in Rebecca but without the gravitas.

Never heard of this until just now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_Softly,_Stranger

y'all seen Welles' nutty Mr Arkadin? def has t3m as a departure point, in fact partly based on the Harry Lime radio series.

The reconstructed Confidential Report Criterion is likely the best version we'll ever see. It includes episodes of the radio program "The Lives of Harry Lime."

yes ive been rewatching. Michael Redgrave hilarious as gay antiques dealer.

y'all seen Welles' nutty Mr Arkadin?

watched a bunch of this on cable the other night - v enjoyable but I missed the beginning :(

prob doesnt matter as much as youd think

there's a great clip on the CC of Welles directing Paola Mori (later his wife irl, playing his daughter) while playing a scene with her.

yeah, Shakes, you could watch this movie at any point, makes no difference.

haha I did get that vibe and had no problem just going with it, which was one of the things I liked about ti

actually one of my favorite welles movies, lots of fun stuff. the goya party, the curiosity shop.

anna is kind of a hard part because the entire movie takes place within her ~72hour grieving period

(holly's grieving period is easier to watch since it takes the form of one of his books and it is vonderful the way he keeps the tension, but really it is only delusion that keeps him multi-note)

the scene in her apartment where she's wearing the HL bathrobe and holly is drunk and going on and on about trying to make her laugh is the most excruciating part of the movie, which they must have known because they put the perk-you-up welles reveal immediately after

btw eternal mysteries: does she say "sometimes he said i laughed too much" or "sometimes he said i loved too much"

this film is incredible.

random q: why do the Russians care so much about repatriating some random Czech woman?

I never knew there were snake charmers in Texas.

Some minor niggling points:
There seems to be an awful lot of time between the porter's death and then Holly and Anna arriving to find the accusatory crowd outside. Surely the body would have been discovered sooner. Also, why is the child unattended? And why, if the porter tells Holly to come back later when his wife is gone for the evening, is she not there to see the killers?

Anna shows up at the Cafe where Holly is waiting to meet Harry because "Kurtz told here" and "they were just arrested." Even so, how would he know, and if arrested how would he be able to tell her?

Manny Farber didn't like it as much as most of us

"I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm."

Anyway just noticed a few new things:
Anna refuses to throw dirt on Harry's purported grave during the first, fake burial, or burial of Harbin in Harry's place. Why? Because she is too upset? Because she knows Harry is alive? No to this latter, those who are in the know are eager to keep up the charade.

First spotting of live Harry is echoed/foreshadowed in other scenes of looking at window onto street, some from Anna's apartment, but also when porter looks out window into street with Holly to describe how the third man was ordinary looking - and at same time phone rings and there is no one there but heavy breathing when Anna picks up - is it Harry?

Also when Calloway looks out of window in his office and quips to Anna about Holly tailing her.

wait, holly walking down the sewer pipe out of the fog mirrors anna walking down the cemetery road between the trees

Connection that exists only in the cinematic unconscious: Harry getting ready to throw Holly out of the big wheel car in the Prater and Uncle Charlie Joseph Cotten trying to throw Young Charlie Teresa Wright from the train in Shadow of a Doubt.

Shot of porter calling from window to Holly in street inviting him to come by in the evening and then later shot of Kurtz and Winkel talking to Holly from window across the street from Prater. Holly knows better than to go inside since he knows what happened in the previous situation.

how does it look in digital?

Pretty sweet. First thing that stood out for me was Trevor Howard's black leather coat at the funeral.

Thought about changing horses and going to see the Les Blank Leon Russell instead but I stayed the course.

What kind of a spy do you think you are, satchel foot?

he moved his head, but the rest is good, isn't it?

what can i do, old man? i'm dead, aren't i?

First spotting of live Harry is echoed/foreshadowed in other scenes of looking at window onto street, some from Anna's apartment, but also when porter looks out window into street with Holly to describe how the third man was ordinary looking

forget how many times in these shots a passing streetcar softly sparks, possibly only once, but it is one of my fave small images

porter's speech there btw is as central as welles' later "dots that stopped": i didn't see his face. he didn't look up. he was quite... gewöhnlich. ordinary. he might have been just anybody.