The Third Man

The Third Man (1949) is Carol Reed's British film noir you can watch online on iFILM. Pulp Western writer Holly Martins lands in bombed-out, divided Vienna to take a job from his old friend Harry Lime. He arrives to find Harry already buried.

Something about the death feels wrong. British officer Major Calloway paints Harry as a petty racketeer, yet Martins keeps digging anyway. Witnesses at the funeral contradict each other: some saw two men carry the body, others swear there was a third. Harry's lover, the actress Anna (Alida Valli), guards what she knows. Joseph Cotten plays the naive American slowly pulled under by a city built on the black market and old loyalties.

Orson Welles is on screen for only a handful of minutes, but his Harry Lime became one of cinema's most quoted entrances. Robert Krasker won an Academy Award for the photography, all tilted angles and rain-slicked cobblestones lit against the rubble. Anton Karas scored the whole thing on a single zither, and that theme outlived the picture itself. Stream The Third Man (1949) online on iFILM.