The Third Man (1949)

What sort of name is Harry Lime, and why is that someone’s name? Very simple because that’s his name that’s why. He’s not even the main character, he’s an enigma I think. No the main character is called Holly and he was just as confusing, at one point I thought he was going to get pushed out of, or at least fall off a Ferris wheel – yeah random, why are Ferris wheels always at the centre of some sort of drama, although this one wasn’t, as it only appears for about five or six minutes in one sequence throughout the whole feature it really has no relevance and is clearly only there or the aesthetic – but hey I appreciated it. On the subject of random things, there was also a random child that ran around the streets of Vienna presumably parent less, he didn’t speak English (he just shouted and pointed a lot really) and then somehow incited and then became the leader of a chase that lasted about a minute, which is very odd, why is this a thing, also this film had rather a lot of chase scenes – again odd. The whole film, I must admit, was odd, it was odd back then and it’s still odd now, but I suppose that’s what’s charming about it. I was confused, especially as the characters in the film spoke about three or four languages between them but I did get quite a few laughs out of it and I did appreciate the atypical cinematographic features like the Dutch angles sprinkled throughout the film and the use of shadows ad silhouettes, I also do love a good mystery and it is an excellent example of film noir, I just don’t think it can stand the test of time. If you’re a film academic and you want to study classical Hollywood and film noir, the go for it, knock your socks off – however if you’re looking for a mystery or some sort of action film, then I wouldn’t recommend this, unless you like Orson Welles or black and white films or you just have a very open mind and are willing to sit down for one hundred and four minutes feeling confused as you sit wondering who and what is the third man and is there even a third man at all, well watch the feature and you’ll find out –hopefully, If you’ve been paying attention and watching and listening very carefully.