British film director Carol Reed’s 1949 masterpiece, The Third Man, based on a Graham Greene novella of the days of a divided post-war Vienna is being re-released by the film production company StudioCanal in a meticulous frame-by-frame 4k restoration master. The new version was unveiled in 2015 at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival to coincide with the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Orson Welles. Welles, of course, only had limited screen time as the villain, Harry Lime, but one of his most memorable and iconic of roles. The film will play in theaters across Europe throughout the summer.
Filmed in Vienna, with its stunning locations in a landscape ruined by war and divided between districts of control between the eastern and westerns power, The Third Man offered a shadowy look at the city’s flourishing criminal underworld of black market skullduggery, with a cast headed by Welles regular film foil Joseph Cotton, as hapless western novelist Holly Martins, Trevor Howard as the British military police officer, Alidi Valli as resistant love interest, and an early screen turn by Bernard Lee (the future “M” in a double dozen James Bond films), as Howard’s sergeant and fan of Cotton’s character’s pulp novels.
To this day tourist visitors to Vienna can visit the real locations featured in this unforgettable movie classic which still survive much as they were. The Giant Ferris Wheel (Riesenrad) which is still a symbol of the city which played such a prominent role for Harry Lime’s philosophy about his crimes. The wheel still offers fantastic views of the city below from its compartments and the Hotel Sacher where Holly Martins was offered a few days lodging stay, remains legendary.
With the help of pictures and music, visitors can retrace the steps of the characters with the Third Man Walking Tour to experience the atmosphere of the film along the trail of Harry Lime to original locations in the Old Town such as Josefsplatz and Mölker Bastei. The Third Man Tour – Sewers takes film fans into one of the oldest sections of Vienna’s notorious sewerage network by the same steps that appear on the film screen. A stop at the Third Man Museum presents more insights into the dark noir world with a variety of props from the film, photographs and artifacts from the post-WWII era. The museum also is the home to Anton Karas’ zither, which he used to compose the famous Third Man theme tune which went on to become a sensation across Europe following the film’s original release. To see The Third Man in the original English-language version while in Vienna, the Burg Kino film theater on the Opernring presents tri-weekly screenings. Other locations include the legendary Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) which features at the beginning and end of the film, and where some of Vienna’s most famous residents like composer Ludwig von Beethoven are buried.
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