WHAT: The Third Man (1949, 4K DCP) British Restored Version
WHEN: September 16, 2026 1 PM & 7 PM
WHERE: Pickwick Theatre, Park Ridge, IL
WHAT ELSE: Pre-show organ music by Jake McDonagh; cartoon
HOW MUCH: $12/$10 advance or $10 for the 1 PM matinee.
Advance Tickets: Click Here and select date and time.
“Highly intelligent and superby executed– but never disdainful of its audience– The Third Man is a hybrid work of art. Its mood changes from moment to moment. There are strong undercurrents of tone and emotion that pull it to and from despair or frivolity. It is also a film that insists on a variety of perspectives: it knows that there is no such thing as a comprehensive outlook on the world and that there is more which is secret and indefinable in people (and places) than is open and intelligible. It is this knowledge that makes it complex, shifting… and classic.” ~ Rob White, The Third Man (BFI Film Classics, 2003)
“Of all the movies that I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies.” ~ film critic Roger Ebert
Traditionally, our first show of a new season is an older classic, and this time we’ll be offering one of the best– a film about friendship, betrayal and moral uncertainty. Join us on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, when the Pickwick Theatre Classic Film Series opens its thirteenth season with a screening of Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949). Although technically a British-US co-production, it is considered one of the finest British films ever made. The Third Man is a film noir noted for its screenplay, cinematography, and acting. Fans specifically recall its zither music, the chase in the sewer– and one of the most famous speeches ever spoken on film.
The screenplay was written by novelist Graham Greene, who initially wrote a novella as the story treatment. British producer Alexander Korda had asked Greene to write a film for director Carol Reed as a follow-up to their previous collaboration, The Fallen Idol (1948). Korda requested that the story take place in post-war Vienna, Austria, which at that time was divided into four zones occupied by the Allies: the Americans, the British, the French, and the Russians. Greene traveled to Vienna in February 1948. The city was still ravaged by the effects of the war, and sections of the city were rubble. During his stay, Greene met reporter Peter Smollett of the British newspaper, The Times, who gave Greene the idea for the “diluted antibiotics” that would appear in the finished screenplay. Additional background detail came from a chance meeting Greene had with the Duke of St. Albans, (Col. Charles Beauclerk), who shared with Greene details on the Viennese sewers. This would play a major role in the film’s climax.
Holly Martins is an American writer in Vienna. He’s there because his friend, Harry Lime, has a job offer for him. However, shortly after his arrival, Holly discovers that not only is Harry dead, but the British military police under Major Calloway suspect him of being a racketeer. Holly is determined to clear his friend’s name and proceeds to meet those locals who knew Harry in the moments preceding his death. He also meets and falls in love with Harry’s girlfriend, Anna, a refugee in the city. There are discrepancies in the various accounts that Holly hears. He becomes suspicious about the presence of a “third man” at the scene of Harry’s death. Ultimately, the intrigue leads Holly and the British police into the sewers of Vienna.
Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins.
When Greene travelled to Vienna to do research, he already had an idea for a story in his head. Before he had ever started on The Third Man, he had written the beginning of a story on the back of an envelope: “I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago, when his coffin was lowered into the frozen February ground, so that it was with incredulity that I saw him pass by, without a sign of recognition, among the host of strangers in the Strand.” But just as the film’s overall success was due to a collaborative effort, so too was the story itself. Though written by Graham, there was significant guidance from Carol Reed as well as from the film’s American producer, David Selznick.
Alexander Korda had teamed up with David Selznick in a partnership that would, in time, sour. But there was great promise at the outset. In exchange for the distribution rights, Selznick provided Korda with financing and the American talent. Both Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli were under contract to the American producer. In addition to supplying the stars, Selznick was entitled final script approval. Prior to shooting, Graham Greene and Carol Reed met with Selznick who, true to his reputation, was an overbearing philistine whose ideas and constant suggestions for alterations were generally ignored. One significant contribution that Selznick did make to the story, however, proved to be a vast improvement. It was Selznick who made the case for the final shot in the cemetery. Greene credits Reed for the ending, but the director may have taken his initial cue from Selznick.
Originally, Cary Grant had been offered the role of Holly Martins, but his asking price ($200k + 10% of the European profits) was steep. Without a finished script, Grant was non-committal. The producers finally had to move on. Though he lacked Grant’s star power, the underrated Joseph Cotten proved to be an excellent choice for the role. Alida Valli, or simply “Valli” as she was credited, was an Italian actress and an international star. Throughout her career, she worked with some of the most famous directors in the world. More recently, she had starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947). Trevor Howard, perhaps best known for his role in David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), had the part of Major Calloway. For the pivotal role of Harry Lime, Carol Reed had always wanted Orson Welles when others suggested Noel Coward. Selznick believed Welles was poison at the box office. Nonetheless, Carol Reed prevailed.
Orson Welles as Harry Lime.
The first day of principal photography in Vienna was October 22, 1948. It would be a seven-week shoot, lasting until December 11, 1948. From then on, the production moved to England and Shepperton Studios, where many of the interiors were shot. While in Vienna, most of the shooting was done at night. There were three camera units in total that worked around the clock. Robert Krasker, the credited cameraman, supervised the night scenes, but Stan Pavey was on the sewer unit and Hans Schneeberger worked on the day unit. Assistant director Guy Hamilton recalls,
“The night unit finished at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, and you’d have three hours sleep till 8, because it didn’t get light until about 9 o’clock in the morning… You couldn’t shoot day after 4 o’clock in the afternoon, so from 4 till 7 we got three more hours’ sleep then. And somehow for 7 weeks, 3 hours there and 3 hours there, and lots of Benzedrine, Carol directed the whole sodding thing.”
Robert Krasker’s Academy Award-winning cinematography is one of the great pleasures of the film. The Third Man is shot with many cinematic devices such as the canted (or Dutch) angles where the camera seems a little off center, which creates a sense of uneasiness and disorientation. The high contrast lighting and use of shadows add immeasurable to the film’s visual style, making it one of the classics of British film noir. But the camera also captures on film a unique time and place in European history. In the wake of the Nazi occupation and destruction, Vienna was a city in ruins. Citizens were living in deprivation, just trying to get by, and the black market was very much a real thing. All this atmosphere and detail is felt within the frame. It’s a setting no studio set could have duplicated, thus making the location shooting a large part of the film’s success.
The filmmakers shot around Orson Welles until he could be located. He was a hard man to get a hold of as he bounced from one exotic European locale to the next. The producers had to track him down in Italy even though he had already agreed to do the picture. This rather humorous backstory is detailed in In Search of The Third Man (1999) by Charles Drazin. The gamesmanship that Welles was playing was directed at Korda and not Reed. Korda and Welles were supposed to have collaborated on earlier projects prior to this film, but none came to fruition. His revenge of sorts didn’t last. Welles needed the money as he was preparing his film version of Othello (1951). He eventually made it to Vienna in November 1948.
While the filmmakers waited for him in Vienna, scenes were shot using doubles, such as assistant director Guy Hamilton, whose running shadow is seen against the buildings at night. Some of the location scenes that were eventually shot with Welles included the scene of him coming and going at the amusement park. He later balked at doing any scenes in a sewer. Eventually, the production crew had to build an amazing sewer set back in England. It is also at Shepperton where Welles filmed the carriage ride on the Big Wheel.
Orson Welles has one of the most famous entrances in movie history in which his character, standing in a darkened doorway, is suddenly illuminated by an apartment light. It’s one of the most famous shots in the movie. Besides this dramatic entrance– and an equally memorable exit in the sewer– Welles has the most famous lines spoken in the film. This dialogue was not written by Graham Greene but was added by Welles himself. His famous “cuckoo clock” speech, which he delivers to Joseph Cotten before leaving the Prater park, was not original as it had literary sources, but Welles astutely appropriated it and made it seem original to the film.
When The Third Man was finished, David Selznick wanted to see a print of it. A fire at Korda’s studio delayed the process as the filmmakers had to reassemble sections of the film. Selznick was pleased with the end result although some changes were made for the American release. One of the more significant was the change in narration. In the British version, Carol Reed’s voice initially sets the scene for the audience in a rather sardonic voiceover. However, in the American version, Joseph Cotten narrates, and although the dialogue is nearly the same, the American version makes Holly out to be a somewhat stronger character. His depiction in the film was always a concern of Selznick’s. Holly was never the strong, heroic figure that Selznick would have liked. Cotten is basically an out of place American who thinks he knows all the answers, meddling in the affairs of another country.
One of the most distinctive aspects of The Third Man is its soundtrack. It makes use of the stringed, zither instrument, which Carol Reed discovered at a welcoming party when he arrived in Vienna. Its unique sound made such an impression when he first heard it that he determined to use it in the film. Weeks afterward, he sought out the local musician who had been playing it and learned his name was Anton Karas. Reed intended to use it as incidental, background music, but it had such a distinctive sound he made the decision to feature it in place of a traditional orchestral score. Whenever people hear the word “zither,” they immediately think of this film and no other. Did the score change film music in a revolutionary way? No, but it was groundbreaking at the time and a somewhat risky choice for those used to traditional film scoring. Karas became an overnight sensation because of it. The “Third Man Theme” would become a recording hit with many popular bands and artists covering it over the years.
The Third Man was both a critical and box office hit– and a film that would go on to influence generations of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Akira Kurosawa. It became such a success that it inspired a radio drama (narrated by Orson Welles) as well as a TV series starring Michael Rennie as Harry Lime. Is The Third Man the greatest British film ever made? In 1999, the British Film Institute thought so. But as someone who has presented on filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, I will stop short of making that lofty proclamation about The Third Man, but there is no doubt that it is one of the films deserving of that superlative. It is certainly the most distinguished film with which we have ever opened a season of classic movies.
~MCH
Orson Welles and Carol Reed on the set of The Third Man. Photo courtesy of Life Magazine.
