Review:
In Search of the Third Man
By Charles Drazin
Book Review
DVD: Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN (1949)
New transfer with digitally restored image and sound
Publisher: The Criterion Collection (Janus Films & Home Vision Cinema), 1999
BOOK: IN SEARCH OF THE THIRD MAN
By Charles Drazin
Publisher: Limelight Editions (Proscenium), 2000, 224 pages, paperback
BOOK: THE THIRD MAN
By Graham Greene
The original "treatment" upon which the film is based
Publisher: Penguin USA, 1999, 160 pages, paperback
Also see: The Third Man in the German Classroom - from your Guide
This book was not quite what I expected. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
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Charles Drazin's In Search of the Third Man is a well researched examination of the “alchemy” that turned The Third Man into a cinematic masterpiece. He tells the complex story of how the motion picture was created through the collaboration of a British director (Carol Reed), a Hungarian-born producer (Alexander Korda), a British writer (Greene), a Hollywood mogul (David Selznick), and many others. Drazin writes in his preface: “Although it is certainly possible to single out this or that individual for the particular importance of his or her contribution, if we are to be honest, the film has not one but several authors. Even this scarcely does justice to the full complexity. For the final film turns out not as any of its individual contributors had planned, but according to the interaction—or aggregate—of their egos, and according to countless other circumstances beyond anyone's control.”
For the most part Drazin's book is a smooth read that will teach you a lot about the making of The Third Man. Among other things, you'll learn that it could have been a very different film. Instead of Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard we might have been watching James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson in postwar Vienna. Cary Grant was also seriously considered for the lead role of Holly Martins. If any one of those actors had joined the cast, what a different film it would have been. We also learn that after a serious falling out between Korda and Selznick, the film's U.S. release was delayed and it was nearly not released in the U.S. at all. Drazin has also written an interesting section on the many differences between the American and the British versions of The Third Man, and I found myself agreeing with his conclusion that the original British version is superior to Selznick's American edit.
For a THIRD MAN view of Vienna, see
A Different Kind of Vienna Tour
with location photos!
Although many scenes in the film were shot on location in Vienna, mostly at night, I was surprised by how much of Graham Greene's story was filmed in a London studio, including most of the classic sewer scenes. After keeping the director and the crew waiting, the notoriously nonpunctual Orson Welles finally arrived in Vienna for his scenes as Harry Lime. But after shooting one scene in the sewers, the tempermental actor turned up his nose at working in those conditions, forcing the director to shoot many of Welles' scenes with stand-ins and later at the Shepperton Studios. Most viewers can tell that some of the cemetery scenes were filmed on a sound stage, and the ferris wheel interiors are obviously rear projection studio shots, but you gain new respect for the film's set designers when you try to determine which of the Viennese sewer shots were the real thing.
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THE THIRD MAN Austrian (A) and German (D) Cast & Crew Stab und Besetzung |
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• Oswald Hafenrichter (A) Editor/Schnitt • Peter Smollett/Hans Peter Smolka (A) Co-scriptwriter/Drehbuch • Anton Karas (A) Music/Musik • Hans Schneeberger (D) Cinematography/Kamera • Elizabeth Montagu (A) Austrian Advisor • Alida Valli (I) Anna Schmidt • Paul Hörbiger (A) The Porter • Ernst Deutsch (A) Baron Kurtz • Erich Ponto (D) Dr. Winkel • Siegfried Breuer (A) Popescu • Hedwig Bleibtreu (A) Anna's landlady • Annie Rosar (A) Porter's wife • Herbert Halbik (A) Hansl (little boy) > Third Man Goofs & Trivia |
This otherwise enjoyable book is marred by several failings. The lack of an index is one of the more serious. Another is the bad German scattered throughout the book. Drazin admits that his German is not very good, but couldn't his British publisher have found a German proofreader? It is irritating to read a book that uses so many German words and gets so many of them wrong. In most cases, German words that need them are missing their umlauts (die Fontane, fountain, should be Fontäne). More than once, Kirche (church) is misspelled Kirke. In one early passage Drazin (correctly) mentions “Austrian schillings.” But in a series of later references, he repeatedly uses the odd term "schillers" for the Austrian currency that was recently replaced by the euro (which Drazin incorrectly capitalizes, German style). A first-year German student knows better than to write "Gut Abend" or "Danker schön." Such language flubs never seem to end, and the reader is surprised when the author occasionally gets a German word right.
Another book: Der dritte Mann von
Brigitte Timmermann (in German, Amazon.de)
If you're expecting serious help with a "guided tour" for The Third Man in Vienna, you'll be as disappointed as I was. The book's lone map of Vienna is largely useless for matching film scenes with city locations, leaving the impression it was a last-minute afterthought. Although Drazin devotes a chapter entitled "Fifty Years On" to his own recent guided tour (cemetery, Prater, and sewers) and discusses some Vienna filming locations in detail (the "Holly sees a ghost in the shadows" location description is very good), I was disappointed that there was not more detail on tracing the steps of the film's location shots in today's Vienna. After all, isn't the book's title "In Search of..."? In the end I was left with a feeling of tour deprivation.
Readers do get some help from the book's 26 black-and-white photos. Most are publicity stills taken by Len Lee during filming in 1948, with a few present-day shots taken by the author. The illustrations are interesting, but the selection is rather limited. Strangely, there is only a single photograph of Alida Valli, in which you can barely see her in the first cemetery group scene. (She is more prominently featured in the stills on the Criterion DVD.) I did enjoy the "goof" revealed in a photograph of Harry Lime's apartment house. Under the photo of the entrance used in the film is this caption: “Note the continuity 'goof' of the street number. When Holly arrives in Vienna, he tells customs officials that he is going to stay with a friend of his at 15 Stiftgasse.” Sure enough, the number "5" can clearly be seen in the still and in the film itself.
In Search of the Third Man may not have been exactly the book I wanted, but despite some weaknesses, Charles Drazin's book took me deeper into a film I really admire - and helped me better understand why this British-American collaboration deserves its masterpiece status.
Compare Prices for this Book:
In Search of the Third Man • ISBN: 0879102942
NEXT > Review: The Third Man Book by Graham Greene
MORE > A Different Kind of Vienna Tour - A THIRD MAN view of Vienna with location photos
MORE > Third Man Film Worksheets
> Review: The Third Man DVD
> The Third Man in the German Classroom
> The Third Man on the Web
Other Third Man Books:
• Der dritte Mann von Brigitte Timmermann
• Unter Wien von Alexander Glück u.a.
Bestellen Sie diese Bücher von Amazon.de.
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