Every now and then, you come across a movie, whether it’s on a streaming platform, flipping through the channels on cable, going to a small, local theater, or back years ago, picking up something random at a video rental store. Let me tell you how I first came across The Third Man. I was in college, taking film-related classes at school, and there was a guy named Louis who acted as a librarian of sorts for the film collection at the school. His job mostly consisted of sitting in a chair and keeping tabs on which professors are borrowing which movies at what times. It was thrilling stuff. He had a lot of time on his hands, so he would pop in a movie at his desk when he wasn’t busy and sit there and watch it. And he got paid to do it.
Based on my school/work schedule, I got to most of my classes 20-30 minutes early and have to sit out in the hallway while classes were going on. Louis’ library was just around the corner, but I wouldn’t normally know anything about what he was watching as he would usually have headphones in. However, on this fateful day, his ears were naked, and I heard the strangest tune coming from the library. It sounded like a mix between a guitar and a harp, and it had a nice bounce to it. Later, I would learn that the instrument was called a zither, and the movie he was watching was The Thin Man. I watched maybe 10-15 minutes of the movie with him, so intrigued by the soundtrack I was, and I immediately was enthralled. The visuals of a post-war Vienna, the camera angles and stark lighting, even the narration from Joseph Cotten held my attention.
Upon Louis’ recommendation, I checked out my public library to see if they had a copy, and sure enough, they did. I took a well-used DVD copy of the movie home, and sat through the entire thing. It wasn’t until about the 40-minute mark that I remembered the popcorn I had in the microwave. Anyway, because the disc was rather scratched up, it froze on me just as a little cat walks in front of a doorway where a foot is barely revealed from behind the shadows. If you’ve seen the movie, you know exactly what scene I’m talking about. I had to find a way to finish it. Because I’m a snob, I try to buy Blu-rays when I can instead of DVDs, so I snagged an out-of-print copy on eBay for $130. Watch the movie so you can believe me when I say it was worth it.
Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a Western author, travels to Vienna after receiving a job offer from his friend Harry Lime. Only trouble is, once Martins arrives, he learns that Lime is dead. At the funeral, he hears of two men who witnessed Lime’s death – he was run over by a car while crossing the street – who carted his body to the side of the road. Martins seeks out Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), Lime’s girlfriend, to console her and discuss how neither of them believe the stories they hear of Harry’s death. In fact, as they talk, they realize there are conflicting accounts of the incident and Martins is convinced that there was a third man to help transport the body. In order to find out what really happened to his friend, Martins decides to investigate and find out who could possibly be the third man. The chase sequence in the sewers alone makes the film worth a watch, but there’s much here to be witnessed. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie.
Bonus Review: Double Indemnity
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Another Billy Wilder classic. The only other filmmaker I have seen juggle both intense drama and ridiculous comedy is Howard Hawks. It’s not a feat many can do and do well. But what makes Double Indemnity so special is two-fold. One, it is the blueprint by which nearly every other noir goes by: the chiaroscuro effect of light and dark, the Venetian blind look (where the light casts the shadows of window blinds over the characters to make them look like prison bars), the femme fatale, the doomed protagonists, and so on. Every movie in the genre after it can trace something back to Double Indemnity. And two, it had the writing power of Billy Wilder and the two biggest names in pulp fiction of the era: James M. Cain, who wrote the book that the film is based on as well as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce, and Raymond Chandler, who wrote the novels for the Philip Marlowe detective character as well as the screenplay for Double Indemnity. The crime-story know-how attached to this film has yet to be duplicated in any crime film since.
Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is an insurance salesman who meets the wife of one of his clients, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). When she brings up the idea of getting a life insurance policy for her husband without his knowledge, Neff agrees to help her get one, finding himself attracted to Phyllis’ calculating nature. Together, they hatch a plot to get the policy and then killing her husband. If they can make it look like an accident, they can invoke the double indemnity clause, which means double the payout. However, Neff’s boss, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), is not taken for a fool, and tries to investigate the nature of Mr. Dietrichson’s death and Phyllis’ role in it. As things play out, Walter and Phyllis lose faith and trust in each other, and their relationship deteriorates. All the while, Keyes gets closer and closer to discovering the truth.