THE THIRD MAN Screens May 3rd at The Tivoli – ‘Classics in the Loop’

“Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!”

THE THIRD MAN screens Wednesday May 3rd at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Roger Ebert called Harry Lime, the character played by Orson Welles in the 1949 classic THE THIRD MAN, his favorite screen villain of all time. Fittingly, he gets one of the great movie character introductions — an unforgettable one involving a doorway, a cat, and a sudden beam of light. There’s a reason that the only Academy Award won by THE THIRD MAN, one of the most beloved films of all time, went to Robert Krasker for cinematography – this night-shrouded mystery is visually eye-popping and the picture quality of director Carol Reed’s masterpiece is one of its most essential attributes.

Taking place in Vienna post WWII, THE THIRD MAN follows pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) on a trip to meet his friend Harry Lime (Welles) in Vienna, only Holly soon learns that Harry has died in an accident outside his apartment. Looking for answers, Holly discovers that there’s more to it than he realized and that Harry might not have been the person he thought he was. Trevor Howard and Alida Valli co-star as Maj. Calloway, who leads the investigation into the truth of Lime’s death and Anna, Harry’s former lover whom Holly falls for.

Darkness pervades nearly every scene as Holly inches closer to the truth. Coupled with Reed’s keen eye for dramatic camera angles, THE THIRD MAN maintains suspense throughout, from its opening to the famous final sewer sequence. THE THIRD MAN won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the British Film Academy’s best British film award and an Academy Award for Robert Krasker’s cinematography. Anton Karas’ score was played entirely on a zither, and ‘Harry Lime’s Theme’ was the most popular international title in 1950. Karas’ music was so famous, he opened a nightclub in Vienna called, naturally, The Third Man in 1954, and played his famous music there until 1966. Harry Lime was so memorable that Welles reprised him in radio shows — there was even a television show in the late ‘50s in which Lime (played by Michael Rennie) was the hero who made money dealing art and solving crime.

St. Louis-area fans of THE THIRD MAN are in for a treat as THE THIRD MAN screens Wednesday May 5th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. THE THIRD MAN spent decades in the public domain and many film buffs grew up watching it in tattered 16mm prints and fuzzy VHS transfers.  This is one of those classics that if you haven’t ever seen, it’s always the right time to watch. Or in this case, catch it on the big screen looking better than ever before. THE THIRD MAN is the best movie in town.

Here’s the rest of the line-up for the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series:
May 10th – TOUCH OF EVIL – 1958
May 17th – CHINATOWN – 1974
May 24th – BLOOD SIMPLE – 1984

Look for continued coverage of the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series here at We Are movie Geeks.