European Film: The Third Man (1949)

By -

This 1949 classic stars Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard, and chronicles pulp novelist Holly Martins who travels to Vienna and ends up investigating the death of an old friend, Harry Lime. He eventually discovers that the man he’d seen in a coffin at the narrative’s outset had not in fact been Lime.

It won Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black and White, and for Best Director (Carol Reed).

Welles played the role of Harry Lime, who, while being a major entity in the narrative, did not appear on screen for much of the movie. Welles was responsible largely for acting in one scene, a chase through the sewers.

Upon arriving for his brief stay in Vienna, Welles found himself staying next door to his fetching co-star, Alida Valli. However, nothing romantic developed between the two, a circumstance he would later bemoan.  “I see The Third Man every two or three years,” he told biographer Barbara Leaming, “and I look at Alida Valli, and I say, ‘What was in your mind when you were ten days in Vienna and you didn’t make a move?’ She drives me mad with lust when I see her in it.”

Hear all 52 episodes of HARRY LIME!
Another reminder of the experience came from the fact that the soundtrack, haunting zither music by Anton Karas, became such a sensation. Author Charles Higham asserts that “for years afterward, whenever Welles entered a restaurant that had an orchestra or a pianist, the musicians were inclined to strike up the Third Man theme.

Later, Welles would have a chance to give the character Harry Lime an entirely new life in the Radio series The Lives of Harry Lime.  These recordings and more can be heard from Old Radio Cat.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Death and Funeral

By -
Image
On Oct. 10, 1985, Welles appeared on The Merv Griffin Show in what would be his last public appearance before his death. It is made all the more poignant by the personal, wistful turn the discussion takes. Dressed in a Navy blue jacket with a sky blue shirt and an ascot, Welles says that not long ago he’d begun thinking he was 70 when really only 69, meaning that he’d given himself an extra year. He told Griffin that he experienced “certain parts of every day that are joyous,” continuing, “I’m not essentially a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy.” On the difference between the two, he said, “joy is a great big electrical experience, but happiness is...a warthog can be happy.” He died in the early morning, slumped over his typewriter, of a heart attack. He’d been, as in life, working on a script for one of his crammed schedule of projects. It was a script for a TV show tentatively titled “Orson Welles Solo.” Welles was cremated and a stark funeral was hastily arran
Read more

Orson Welles: Introduction

By -
Image
Best known as the director of Citizen Kane and for the radio broadcast of H.G. Wells 's "War of the Worlds," Orson Welles was a polymath who excelled as an actor, writer, director, and producer on radio, film, and television. In fact, his reach went so far as television commercials, and by the end of his life, he was a household name for his Paul Masson wine commercials ("we will sell no wine before its time.") Welles was the director of (in addition to Citizen Kane ) The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady From Shanghai , Touch of Evil, and Chimes At Midnight. In addition to playing major roles in some of these films, he also starred in the classic The Third Man and has more than a hundred screen acting credits to his name. Orson Welles began his career on stage, directing plays under the Federal Theatre Project and then with his company Mercury Theatre. He took the Mercury Theatre to the Air , becoming a radio celeb with broadcasts of productions of va
Read more

Orson Welles 1984

By -
Image
While Orson Welles never acted in or produced any version of George Orwell’s Novel 1984 , he is associated with the work because of the similarity in named. Some people think Orville Wright invented really good popcorn, or that Bill Cosby sang “White Christmas.” This is the same phenomenon. However, there’s no reason not to know what Welles was doing in 1984. It was the year in which he voiced the lead chipmunk in a film called Enchanted Journey . He also played a supportive role (Klingsor) in Where is Parsifal ? a film that holds the distinction of bringing together Tony Curtis and Erik Estrada. For Orson Welles, 1984 was not the highlight of his career, but I’d guess that for Welles, Orwell’s 1984 was a great read.
Read more