#20 The Third Man - with music that doesn't match the tone of the film

1949. dir. Carol Reed, starring Joseph Cotten, Valli, Orson Welles.

Seen it before? No.

And unfortunately you're going to have to wait for my review. I wasn't paying close attention to the movie and therefore, aside from the annoying music, and realizing one of the stars of the film wasn't in it til the middle of the movie, I really have no opinion...yet. STAY TUNED!

January 16, 2010

I decided after the Star Wars Trilogy Marathon to watch The Third Man. What I knew and remembered was that there was a drunk author trying to find out what happened to a man named Harry Lime. There was a beautiful woman who was in love with him. There was a weird Romanian guy with a dog. There was a cop who was sarcastic and snarky. And the man who died appeared halfway through the movie. Oh, and there was music that was really annoying and didn't match the movie...unless it was meant to be a comedy but I'm pretty sure it wasn't! I mean, come on, did Anton Karas watch the movie or read the plot before he wrote the music?

I didn't remember how Orson Welles actually looked so I looked him up on imdb.com. He looks like Vince Vaughn!

The movie was actually pretty good despite not showing the action at the beginning, fine since that's a movie trick; and thankfully there was not a lot of violence. I believe I've had my share of watching violent movies for a while - Unforgiven.

Bernard Lee, who played Sgt. Paine, caught my attention when he claimed to be a fan of Holly's books. Only when I tried to understand why did I find out that he played M in the Bond movies until his death in 1981. It was one of those moments when the light bulb turned on in my head!

All in all, not a bad movie.

Would I see it again? Actually yes. I'm sure I missed some other trivial pieces this second go around
Would I add it to my collection? Eh, it was good but not a keeper for me!

#20 The Third Man: Death is at the bottom of everything

1949. dir. Carol Reed, starring Joseph Cotten, Valli, Orson Welles.

Seen it before? No.

Meh. Joseph Cotten was great, and I liked this mysterious "Valli" woman; she was kind of like the Carrie-Anne Moss of her day. But four things ruined this movie for me:

1. One of the many things that I hated about Sweet Home Alabama is that the poster ruined the ending. Shit, the title ruined the ending. Well, for this movie, the Netflix description said "Orson Welles plays Harry Lime", and that is a key plot point. You don't find out he's still alive until 45 minutes in.

2. The Hays Code. From about 1930 until the late 1950's, these were the rules for making movies, and they were pretty restrictive. Basically, crime couldn't pay. You couldn't have the villain get away with anything. Hence you sort of knew how it was going to end pretty early.

3. The movie relies on a bait-and-switch with bodies - i.e. they bury one person with the pretense that it is somebody else. This is tricky to pull off; you have to have some way of justifying why the authorities (who tend to do pesky things like PERFORM AUTOPSIES) wouldn't catch on. They don't bother justifying it at all here. Felt like a cheat.

4. The zither music. Sounded like the music for some light-hearted Jacques Tati-esqe movie and not what was supposed to be a serious film noir.

Position on the list: 62
Picture quality: It looked like shit smeared on English muffins. Great job, Netflix On Demand. (Actually it was probably Comcast's fault. either way.)