Orson Welles makes one of the greatest entrances in film history in THE THIRD MAN
THE THIRD MAN (Carol Reed, 1949)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Wednesday, March 21, 1:45
Series runs March 19-29
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Rialto Pictures, the art-house film distributor founded by Film Forum programmer extraordinaire Bruce Goldstein, by screening fifteen works reissued over the last fifteen years, including 1949 Cannes winner The Third Man. Carol Reed’s thriller is quite simply the most entertaining film you’re ever likely to see. Set in a divided post-WWII Vienna amid a thriving black market, The Third Man is heavy in atmosphere, untrustworthy characters, and sly humor, with a marvelous zither score by Anton Karas. Joseph Cotten stars as Holly Martins, an American writer of Western paperbacks who has come to Vienna to see his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), but he seems to have shown up a little late. While trying to find out what happened to Harry, Martins falls for Harry’s lover, Anna (Alida Valli); is told to get out of town by Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and Sergeant Paine (Bernard “M” Lee); meets a stream of Harry’s more interesting, mysterious friends, including Baron Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch) and Popescu (Siegfried Breuer); and is talked into giving a lecture to a literary club by old Mr. Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White). Every scene is a finely honed work of art, filled with long shadows, echoing footsteps, dripping water, and unforgettable dialogue about cuckoo clocks and other strangeness. SPOILER: The shot in which Lime is first revealed, standing in a doorway, a cat brushing by his feet, his tongue firmly in cheek as he lets go a miraculous, knowing smile, is one of the greatest single moments in the history of cinema. The Third Man is screening March 20 at 1:45; the Rialto series kicks off March 19 with Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso and includes such other seminal works as Jules Dassin’s Riffifi, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar, Luis Buñuel’s Diary of a Chambermaid, and Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva, forming a kind of Film Forum’s Greatest Hits taking place on the Upper West Side.