#64 - The Third Man

#64 is considered by some to be one of the best British Films ever made - a Noir flick about racketeers in Postwar Vienna - The Third Man

Disclaimer - it took a while to get thru this cause I was interrupted a lot - I'm sure one complete viewing would have been nice - maybe someday...

A pretty good film with Joseph Cotten as an American going to see a friend in Vienna for a job, and later investigating his mysterious death - the city of Vienna really stands out here as a set piece - not for it's beauty necessarily, but for it's devastation - 4 years later, the remains of the war were still obvious - half destroyed buildings, ruined and burned out cars - quite the contrast from films that highlighted the beauty of places like Rio or Venice as I've seen in some of the other films

the music was interesting too - probably the first soundtrack I've heard on a Zither -

There's a lot of good Criterion features including some voiceover, two commentaries, some documentaries, etc - BUT the disk is out of print on Criterion - and it's not even on Filmstruck and even has a delay thru Netflix right now.

I would have enjoyed it more had I been able to watch it straight thru but it is what it is - the camera angles and lighting and B/W make it a jarring piece at times - and the accents make me wish for subtitles occasionally, but it was a pretty good film that kept you hanging along for quite a while

RB