British films

Carol Reed’s ‘The Third Man’ Turns 75

by

The Third Man debuted 75 years ago and even though he didn’t write, direct, or play the starring role, his performance as Harry Lime nevertheless makes it

By Matt Hansen | Sept 2025

The Third Man debuted 75 years ago and even though he didn’t write, direct, or play the starring role, his performance as Harry Lime nevertheless makes it feel like an Orson Welles movie. It’s unfortunate that the focus falls so squarely on him, since a stellar crew were involved in making it. The screenplay was written by Graham Greene based on his original story, with Sir Carol Reed sitting in the director’s chair, and it stars the underrated Joseph Cotton, who appeared in several of the great director’s best films, including Citizen Kane. Welles dominates the movie because his natural charm and devilish charisma are a perfect fit for what the movie understands about the mendacity of disaster.

Sir Carol Reed

We’re in post-WWII Vienna and everything is askew. The grand, cultivated city has been ravaged by war and fascism and economic collapse. The streets are carved up into officially designated Russian, German, and English sectors. People are scrounging to survive, the black market is bustling, and everyone is on the take. Reed expertly depicts the moral and social chaos: expressionistic camera shots are tilted at a dizzying “Dutch angle” which enhances the paranoia and claustrophobia. The film’s pacing has an anxious rhythm as various characters negotiate their legal and moral fates. Anton Karas’ deceptively jaunty theme and spine-tingling zither soundtrack is legendary. Even though it’s shot without color, even incorporating actual footage from the postwar Viennese streets, the morality of the situation is anything but black and white.

Enter Joseph Cotton’s naïve American Holly Martens, a writer of pulp westerns who is in town for a job promised by his old friend Harry Lime. Martens is a good guy though it’s immediately clear that he’s in over his head. Lime has apparently died in a freak car accident, which understandably shakes Martens up, though, given the sardonic expressions on the faces of those who tell him the news, there’s something else going on with his enigmatic old friend. He wants to defend his friend’s honor until he finds out what he was really doing. It turns out that Lime was swiping penicillin from the government, watering it down, and selling it at a marked-up rate to hospitals on the black market. Apparently selling bogus penicillin is especially cruel because it makes the patient immune to future doses of the real drug. Lime has both figuratively and literally been making a killing — including children with meningitis. As the wry English Officer Calloway puts it: “the lucky ones died.”

Five years after the outbreak of the pandemic, Lime’s ruthless opportunism doesn’t seem dated. Award-winning investigative reporter J David McSwane, author of the lively Pandemic, Inc: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick wrote that “a global scarcity of masks created an unregulated market that grew as the Trump administration left states and hospitals to fend for themselves in bidding wars that drove up prices.”

McSwane quotes one hustling wannabe broker of stockpiled M94 masks, wheeling and dealing with the VA midflight about masks he doesn’t even have access to:

“it’s a bunch of buccaneers and pirates! But so were the men who made America. You’re gonna have a lot of millionaires that come out of this. They’re just scoundrels. You have this black market. When the cat’s away the mice will play.”

True indeed. And, though we have not gotten better, nor have we  gotten worse with time; evidently the film’s penicillin based plot point had a real life basis.

The scene when Martens discovers that Lime is indeed very much alive is one of the great entrances in movie history. A cat curls up to a well-dressed leg in a darkened doorway as light from a window suddenly shines across Welles’ face which alternately flickers with bemusement, arrogance, and playful nonchalance. Iconic movie reviewer Roger Ebert named it the very moment when he was “lost to the movies” and crooned that The Third Man “embodies the romance of the movies.” It’s easy to see why. Great skill both behind and in front of the camera is required to make us gasp when we see Lime, especially given that we know what a louse he truly is.

When the old friends finally stand face-to-face, they are standing on a Ferris Wheel, which provides both a reasonable spot for a private chat with a fugitive and a great metaphor for the coldly distant attitude Lime has on the rest of the world. This very short scene is a masterclass in minimalism; Lime’s genuinely happy to see his old friend, pleased at his own cunning, sizing up whether his old pal Martens is considering killing him or being killed by him, and cagily tries to appeal to both Marten’s conscience and his cynicism.

At one point he tells Martens to look down at the tiny people milling around far below and frankly asks if he would really care if one of those dots suddenly stopped moving. The reasonable delivery of Lime’s nihilism is chilling. Of course, you know what he means — we pass strangers down on their luck or hear about X number of people who died on the news pretty much every day and barely give it a second thought. Stalin famously said that “one death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” The mass murderer was utterly wrong. Each statistic represents a million specific tragedies. Yet you can’t help but notice how power creates callousness, how easy it is to disengage from the reality of other people’s lives, and how elites of any kind can easily mistake the people beneath them as no more than dollar signs, lines on a chart, numbers on a page, consumers of an algorithm.

Lime finishes, naturally, with a grandiose rhetorical flourish. He chides Martens for being “gloomy” and quotes an undefined source about how “in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonard Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace — and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” He really sells the comedy in that last sentence. Putting aside whether this is historically accurate, the more you think about the implications the more ridiculous and downright diabolical they become.

What’s he even saying? To take life by the horns? You’ve got to break eggs to make an omelet? Therefore, it’s ok to get rich from prolonging the misery of already helpless and suffering people because at least you have the balls to get yours, no matter who is affected in the process? I’m sure I don’t have to point out where we all might have heard that mentality expressed, both on screen and off. You hear different characters say things like that in the movies all the time and one attribute of today’s world is that it sure seems like life is imitating art. The way that Reed and Welles tell it though, is nonpareil – as the Guardian notes, the film is “near-perfect.”

 

It’s Harry’s swagger, the confidence, the bravado that sells it. Almost. Welles is clearly relishing playing the bad guy, and not for the first or last time in his career. He knows how Lime really enjoys being himself, a very seductive quality. Which makes him a warning. We see throughout the film how even his girlfriend. played with alluring reserve by the lovely Adia Valli, knows he’s terrible and still loves him. Martens, the kindly schmuck, falls for her and she’s having none of it. It’s Harry Lime who they both reminisce about, puzzle over, and who makes the most lasting impact. Like the movie characters, audiences wanted more: there was a spinoff radio series about Lime, played by Welles, and comic books and TV series. I won’t give away the ending, but there’s a heartbreakingly vivid demonstration (using a Van Gogh reference) of how even if a person is proven to be a monster, it’s not always enough to break their hold on those who love them.

 

Source: Carol Reed’s ‘The Third Man’ Turns 75 – Book and Film Globe

Review “Chariots of Fire” the classic British take on 1924 Paris Olympics is superbly watchable

by

This David Puttnam-produced parable of patriotism, faith and meritocratic success – rereleased in honour of the 1924 event – is on the level of classic Hollywood

By Peter Bradshaw

In honour of both the imminent Paris Olympics and the centenary of the 1924 Olympics, also in Paris, here is a rerelease of this superbly watchable true-story parable of patriotism, faith and meritocratic success within the system, much admired by Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden. It was produced by David Puttnam, who had discovered the story of the devout Christian athlete Eric Liddell refusing to run on Sunday and commissioned a terrifically punchy and sympathetic script from Colin Welland (whose victorious Oscar night cry of “the British are coming!” was destined to be endlessly and ironically re-quoted at moments of British failure and disappointment in Hollywood). It was Welland who incorporated Jewish sprinter Harold Abrahams into the film (as well as another gold medallist, Douglas Lowe, who refused any involvement and had to be written out).

 

The film was directed with gusto by first-time director and former adman Hugh Hudson, an Old Etonian who had a real feeling for how the establishment preens itself. The British Olympic team’s ecstatic barefoot training run on Broadstairs beach is accompanied by the instantly iconic, daringly non-period and trance-inducing synth score by Vangelis, hilariously spoofed by Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean in the London 2012 opening ceremony. And watching the credits again, you might jump at that name just behind Welland and Hudson: young producer Dodi Fayed, given prominence in exchange for cash from his father Mohamed, whose own establishment yearnings were as painful as anything on screen.

 
 

Chariots of Fire is the story of two (relative) outsiders, whose stories unfold in parallel, destined to compete alongside each other; they are rivals, teammates but never friends, and in fact they have no meaningful interaction in the drama, though one beats the other in an early heat. Liddell, played by Edinburgh-born stage actor Ian Charleson, is a clean-cut Scots rugby star, athlete and lay preacher, under pressure to resume his family’s missionary work in China. Cheryl Campbell has the rather thankless role of his anxious, querulous sister Jenny. Abrahams, played by the magnificently handsome Ben Cross, is an undergraduate and athlete at Caius, Cambridge, smouldering and simmering with resentment at the antisemitism from the head porter (Richard Griffiths), the Master of Caius, Hugh Kerr Anderson (Lindsay Anderson, no relation) and Master of Trinity JJ Thomson (John Gielgud).

These last two were distinguished scholars and, though unnamed here, the implied slur added to Cambridge University’s displeasure with the production; they were refused permission to film in Trinity College for the uproarious Great Court Run scene, in which Abrahams is imagined to be the first person for 700 years to succeed in this traditional event, running around the court’s perimeter before the clock tolls 12. (In fact, Abrahams never attempted it.) The film made this parochial student lark internationally famous.

Both Liddell and Abrahams infuriate the establishment with their faith and identity. Liddell refuses to run in the 100m because the trials are on a Sunday, and the movie contrives a colossal confrontation between Liddell and the pompous British Olympic committee, before the fictional Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers) rescues them by giving up his chance at a second medal to let Liddell take his place in the 400 m on a different day. (In real life, Liddell knew well in advance he wouldn’t be able to compete in the 100m, his best event.)

As for Abrahams, he enrages the snobby bigots by engaging a professional trainer, Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm) – although the movie displays its own amateurist ethos by not showing Mussabini and Abrahams talking about money. Abrahams has a sophisticated, sensual side (which Liddell certainly does not), falling passionately for beautiful singer Sybil Gordon, played by Alice Krige. (This is a mistake on the film’s part; in actuality Abrahams married a different singer, Sybil Evers.)

And so we are taken to the Paris Games, with the original 1924 poster with athletes giving the “Olympic salute” which was retired later when it was co-opted by the fascists. The scene in which Abrahams races the 100m is brilliantly staged by Hudson and editor Terry Rawlings; showing the race once in real time and then immediately again in slo-mo, interspersed with scenes of stunned and dizzied Abrahams. We don’t see the medal ceremony; we glimpse the flag fluttering aloft over the rooftops to the sound of the national anthem, seen from the window of Sam Mussabini’s hotel room which he had discreetly occupied, not wanting to embarrass his quasi-son Abrahams. It is another tremendous dramatic coup.

Chariots of Fire is rare, maybe almost unique, in that it is a British film which really does look and feel like a classic studio-era Hollywood picture.

Source: Chariots of Fire review – classic British take on 1924 Paris Olympics is superbly watchable | Film | The Guardian

Watch “The Holly and the Ivy”

by

“Russian screen writer Anatole de Grunwald imbues this poignant adaptation of Wynward Browne’s West End stage hit with Chekhov’s spirit and relocates the Russian’s genius for deftly-drawn characters to a rambling Norfolk parsonage on Christmas Eve. […] while The Holly and The Ivy now radiates a nostalgic glow, it is actually a revealing record of a country on the cusp of the dramatic social, economic and cultural change that has, sadly, made faith, fidelity and family feel like relics of a distant past.”

Moviemail Catalogue

The Holly and the Ivy is a 1952 British drama film directed by George More O’Ferrall and starring Ralph Richardson, Celia Johnson, and Margaret Leighton with Denholm Elliott, John Gregson and Hugh Williams also in the cast. It was adapted from the 1950 play of the same name by Wynyard Browne.
Produced by Anatole de Grunwald and co-scripted by Browne and de Grunwald it was distributed by British Lion Films. It is about an Irish clergyman whose neglect of his grown offspring, in his zeal to tend to his parishioners, comes to the surface at a Christmas family gathering.

The film was shot at Shepperton Studios outside London with sets designed by the art director Vincent Korda. Actresses Margaret Halstan and Maureen Delany reprised their roles from the stage.[5] It was released in the United States in 1954 by the independent Pacemaker Pictures. [ Wikipedia ]

50 Years on It’s the Wicker Man’s Music That Still Sets It Apart

by

By Will Hersey

As work trips go, Sergeant Howie’s visit to Summerisle to investigate a report of a missing girl must rank as the most disastrous of all-time. A devout Christian and serious-minded man of the law, he is mocked and tricked from the minute he steps on land to the moment he is carried into a giant wicker effigy to meet his grisly end while they dance and sing deliriously around him. Suddenly a two-day conference in Letchworth doesn’t look so bad.

This week marks 50 years since The Wicker Man was released in UK cinemas as a lowly B-movie to Don’t Look Now. Given its chaotic production, mishandled release from a distribution company who hated it, multiple cuts and missing negatives (the best guess is they were used as road fill for the M3), its current status as one of the greatest British/cult/horror films has certainly been earned the hard way.

Watching the film today, that otherworldly atmosphere which made it so compelling is, if anything, enhanced by the passing of time. Set almost entirely in daytime, with no genre tricks and jumps, and a smiling cast of charming hedonists that wouldn’t look out of place in a Carry On movie, it’s far from a conventional horror.

It’s the film’s flawless soundtrack, from the alluring ‘Corn rigs’ opener through to the closing ‘Sumer is a cumen’ that creates much of the unease. That the composer, Paul Giovanni, who managed to create such a mysterious and powerful take on traditional British folk traditions, was a 21 year-old New Yorker is another of the film’s remarkable sideplots.

Read more