The Third Man 4K 1949 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Holly Martins, author of tabloid novels, in the hope of getting a job comes to post-war Vienna at the invitation of an old friend Harry Lime. Alas, just the day before, he is killed in an accident.

According to police officer Calloway, Lime was a dark personality, racketeer and speculator. Martins decides to conduct his own investigation to clear his friend of the charges of crimes, which, as he is sure, he did not commit.

Moreover, Martins is sure that his friend was murdered, and his killer is somewhere near...

Review 4K Movie

Do truth and justice exist in the world? And what happens if the search for them leads to only one predictable result? Are there things about which it is better to know nothing and doors where you should not go at all?

If “Citizen Kane” in all sorts of polls almost invariably takes the first place in the list of the best American films for the entire existence of cinematography, “The Third Man” is often in a similar position in Britain. The screenplay was born from a single phrase: “I said goodbye to Harry a week ago, when his coffin, lowered into the frozen February ground, and therefore I did not believe myself when I saw how he passed by, not recognizing me, among the crowd on the Strand”.

Author of adventure novels Holly Martins arrives in post-war Vienna at the invitation of her old pal Harry Lime. However, Harry is no longer alive as he recently passed away in an accident. Holly decides to investigate the case to prove that Lime's death was not a simple accident. He is constantly being shot down by the British military, insinuating that Harry had ties to the underworld. And then there is the former lover of the dead friend appears on the horizon ...

From the look of “The Third Man” - the usual noir without special frills, just one of the representatives of his species. “Man” at first glance has all the signs of the genre - frowning people, beautiful women, crime and investigation, despondency and frustration, hovering in the air. However, under a beautiful but cheap cover (and many noirs were based on tabloid reading) in the depths of the narrative hides a drama about life choices, morality, justice and truth.

“The Third Man” is generally characterized by its pretense to the viewer. Starting with light-hearted banjo chords and the voice of the narrator, calmly recounting the prologue of the story, the picture for a long time behaves like a decent noir, consistently revealing a simple story. One that has been told hundreds of times before. An ordinary man who gets into strange and sometimes sinister circumstances and then has to get out of them. In some cases paying with his life for being too curious. However, Carol Reed skillfully decorates the sense of impending menace with the help of the cameraman more with the help of entourage (in the form of vague blurred shadows or plans, shot in maximally curved trajectories, as if seen from behind the corner), rather than polishing the usual for the genre musical cut.

Reed is not inclined to dramatize the situation shabbily, having thrown out of the story many archetypes and noir icons (leaving only Welles, who did a lot for the genre, with a mysterious look, in a characteristic dark long coat and hat). The moody detective, prone to making dark jokes and incessant whiskey whipping, is replaced by a character who drinks to a minimum. The main antagonist, the real “Dr. Death” is spared from the usual sinister movie black areal. However, depriving their characters of some features, the creators of the tape with broad strokes endowed them in return with others, from which the story itself has acquired a completely different shade.

Inseparable friends in life Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, on the screen after many years of friendship find themselves in opposite camps. Moreover, in this confrontation there is no direct hostility, and there is an attempt to drag the former friend to his side. However, Reed is adamant in his axiom that human relationships in their permanence are doomed to failure. Not for nothing, Martins' memories of his childhood with Harry are introduced into the story. Even then, Lime differed sharply from his friend, preferring to lead a life of risk and farthing. Martins was only able to reproduce it in his one-off novels. Therefore, faced after many years two dissimilar, with different life benchmarks, repulsed by each other in an attempt to reunite again as in childhood.

Shot by cameraman Robert Krasker, the dilapidated Vienna, filled with huge black shadows, resembles an otherworldly afterlife (as if borrowed from the German film “M” by Peter Lorre) with a clear impression of expressionism. It is there that two forces collide and only one of them is destined to emerge victorious. Simple-minded writer Holly Martins symbolizes all the light that should be in man - goodness, morality, justice, honesty and the struggle for truth. His friend with twenty years of experience cunning and shrewd Harry Lime - on the contrary, the evil beginning, false morality, deceit, injustice and his truth, which has the right to exist.

“The Third Man” at a certain point turns into a parable, clearly peering through the lines of a cheap adventure novel. Contrary to everything, this parable is devoid of moral moralizing and does not give direct answers to the questions asked. One thing is certain - you can not dig out from under a pile of fictions all the truth, for behind it is death. Everything else is shrouded in darkness. Martins and Lime. A prosperous America left largely unscathed by war and a Europe destroyed almost to the ground. Entertaining, shallow reading and serious problematizing of James Joyce's works. Ethical moral decisions and diabolical, humanity-deprived acts. In the key scene of the picture - on the Ferris wheel, when all comparisons converge at one point and reach a climax, the former friends in general become figures of purely metaphysical nature. Having soared above the world for a short moment, they, like Faust and Mephistopheles, talk about good and evil, argue about the value of human life and decide the fate of those who remained far below, in the form of a small point. Having reached its highest boiling point, the wry “The Man” again hides in the guise of an entertaining novel. Talks about morality, truth and right actions are replaced by the classic genre game of “cat and mouse” (which Welles himself liked to indulge in as a director). The images are again embodied in real people, and the genre does its usual horseplay, giving out to everyone according to their merits and deeds. The music box, to a familiar light and unobtrusive melody closes.

Being in the midst of the abundance of genre representatives, worn and tattered “The Third Man” would like to decorate it with a plaque - “a true classic”. And as banal as it sounds, there are simply no other words. No “poket-book” has ever managed to achieve such an effect. You will ask, who is the notorious “third person”, appearing in the title of the picture? The picture has an answer to that - the ever elusive truth. In a broader sense, it is the viewer himself. It is for him to decide, having previously studied the filmography of Orson Welles and Carol Reed and digging into the facts, who should be recognized as the real author of the screen incarnation of the script by Graham Greene. Which character, Harry Lime or Holly Martins to support in his choices. Or which value system to recognize as more true to existence. After all, where there are two, there must always sooner or later appear a third.