I just watched _The Third Man_ in full for the first time

anything really wrong with your papers?

they're forged.

...why??

do you believe, mr. martins, in the stream of consciousness?

i said: where would you put mr. james joyce? in what caTEGory?

(you could ask him the same question about harry)

(punches Holly in the face) *do* be careful, sir.

^otm. thought about posting this myself

It WASN'T the German gin.

we should have dug deeper than a grave.

I don't think they'd look for a bullet wound after you'd hit that ground.

oh, the same old indigestion. these are the only things that help: these tablets. these are the last. can't get them anywhere in europe anymore.

Is that what you say to people after death? "Goodness, that's awkward"?

sorry for the gravediggers. hard work.

Paine. Paine.

i read a bit of it. looked as though it was going to be pretty good!

Look at yourself. They have a name for faces like that.

holly. what a silly name.

t's all right, Paine. He's only a scribbler with too much drink in him.

i'd say you're doing something pretty dangerous this time.

yes?

mixing fact and fiction.

should i make it all fact?

oh, no, mr. martins. i say stick to fiction. straight fiction.

i'm too far along with the book, mr. popesco.

haven't you ever scrapped a book?

never.

pity!

Mm, yes?

Showing at the nearest art cinema in a week or so - never seen it on the big screen.

...which I guess is for the 70th anniversary.

‘Twas good! There was a bit with a zither player beforehand, which was good - though some folks made annoyed noises as her discussing plot points when describing the piece of music. I had to get a bus so I couldn’t stay for the Q&A, though it didn’t interest me much.

pencil moustached Trevor Howard with his duffle coat on or that big fuckoff leather coat - such a cool look!

Yup

I noticed a lot more rats in the sewers on the big screen.

The shoulders on his jacket are something else xp

In a good print that jacket is very black, as in White Light/White Heat or Smell the Glove black.

showed this on the big screen (from blu) to my movie theater coworkers for my birthday this summer (also inland empire). otm about the rats. in fact the whole sewer sequence opened up for me-- always secretly found it prolonged and dull and this time i found it prolonged and riveting. the part where lime is surrounded by echoes emerging from like a dozen indistinguishable archways suddenly felt like a less ostentatious / more successful version of the mirrors at the end of lady from shanghai.

fave lil character etching these days: popescu, a monster.

the sewer looks like a ken adam set tbh, especially when dozens of people in white jumpsuits start rappelling into it.

Love those sewer entrances that fold up in triangles to reveal a staircase.

I couldn't get over how shocking the reveal was as a kid when i first saw this. Was it the first big he's-dead-no-he's-not type twist in the middle of a film ever? I'm sure it can't have been but..

oh, little things. how to put your temperature up before an exam. how to avoid this and that.

the dead are happier dead. they don't miss much here, poor devils.

XPS Laura did it a few years earlier, but it's spoiled a little since Tierney is the star.

A parrot bit me.

the qualities of this movie that stand out more over time as very "modern" in the best sense are the humor (which remains funny and sharp and incredibly well-timed and true to character), and conversely it's very realistic cold-bloodedness. Holly is a sort of typical Hollywood hero, a big talker, sentimental, a bit blustery in parts, but it's undercut by the fact his innocence and naivete have been and will be taken advantage of by his best friend, and later sharply pointed out by the woman he's in love with. and in a refreshing bit of business, the character of Anna isn't a particularly innocent, betrayed sort in need of rescuing. She doesn't want to be rescued, she's extremely cruel at points, and her love of Harry Lime remaining despite his crimes is a sign of something other than someone who has blinders on.

Was you ever stung by a dead bee?

Sorry, wrong thread

whenever i watch this w people who haven't seen it it always feels as if a moment's thought-- "but wait in this movie revolving entirely around the mysterious death of a character we've never seen, whom does orson welles play"-- would unravel the whole thing, but i've only seen it happen once before the cat nuzzles the shoes.

the humor of the vv cleverly hidden in plain sight story of Holly being roped into giving a talk about literature, from the point that Crabbin enters the scene w/his wife at the hotel, is so good.

her love of Harry Lime remaining despite his crimes is a sign of something other than someone who has blinders on.

otm-- in the last third of the movie her flat explanations for her loyalty are almost mystical-- "a person doesn't change because you find out more"-- and she is the element that allows this coming-of-age story to simultaneously cast itself as an imitation of holly's own (in the end it comes down to a white hat shooting a black hat) and a subversion of them (the shooting is the culmination of a lifelong friendship, holly will never again be able to divide the world into his old caTEGories, and he will certainly not ride into the sunset w the girl).

her acceptance of the "irrational" or "immoral" power of her own loyalty to him is also the symbol of this sad postapocalyptic consciousness the europeans are imagined in the movie to have about themselves

Crabbin enters the scene w/his wife

this is one in what is implied to be a succession of mistresses isn't it! maybe one of them is his wife. the one in this scene is the one he says "i can't very well introduce you to everybody" to tho i think.

he is always physically moving them away from other characters (and from the camera).

http://www.tedxnashville.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ketch-Secor-2-of-28-1160x700.jpg

"I have a master's in Old Man Hat!"

Oops. Meant for the Ken Burns' thread.

Lol

Anna is annoying like unyielding people are; the film understands this.

She is definitely better done than the same character would have been in another movie. The story is that Graham Greene wanted a happy ending and Carol Reed nixed it, assume it has been discussed upthread.

I can recall either the Harry Lime theme or the Curb Your Enthusiasm music, but not both. If the wrong ones in my head I won’t find the other.