Without being exact
forgeries, the films below follow in the footsteps of Carol Reed’s THE THIRD
MAN: BEAT THE DEVIL (1953), ON THE
WATERFRONT (1954), SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960), CHARADE (1963), and THE
DEPARTED (2006). There are others,
but I’m just taking a good bite out of these for now.
[PLEASE NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD. I will keep it to a minimum, but
there’s no way to avoid everything.]
BEAT THE DEVIL (1953)
 |
| Humphrey Bogart (center), Gina Lollobrigida (right), Jennifer Jones (behind Bogart). |
Directed by one of the
greatest American directors, John Huston, this is a dark comedy starring
Humphrey Bogart and an ensemble of unlikely characters — Gina Lollobrigida,
Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, Robert Morley, Ivor Barnard, and Edward
Underdown. There’s even an
appearance by Bernard Lee who memorably plays Sgt. Paine in THE THIRD MAN and
is perhaps best known as “M” in the James Bond films.
Though I’m a huge Bogart fan,
this is one of his films that I didn’t quite take to for a very long time. It’s been described as a spoof of his
famous films THE MALTESE FALCON ((1941) and even CASABLANCA (1942). However, it didn’t click for me, until
I considered it in the context of THE THIRD MAN.
In BEAT THE DEVIL, Bogart,
his wife (Lollobrigida), and Bogart’s partners in crime (Lorre, Morley, and
Barnard) languish in an Italian town, waiting for a boat to Africa where they plan
to score big on a uranium deal.
Also traveling on the boat to Africa is an English couple played by Edward
Underdown and Jennifer Jones who has an unusual tendency to use the phrase “in
point of fact”.
The film opens with a
marching band carrying on clamorously and a narration by Bogart. Though not as original as zither music,
the marching band still forces a gaiety that won’t be entirely appropriate to
the story as it progresses. While
Carol Reed’s opening narration for THE THIRD MAN wasn’t identified, Bogart’s
voice is clearly recognizable to moviegoers and establishes a sardonic breeziness
to the introduction.
BEAT THE DEVIL was originally
a novel by James Helvick (real name Claud Cockburn) and published in 1951, two
years after THE THIRD MAN’s release.
The husband played by Edward Underdown is named Harry Chelm and the name
Harry creates an echo to Harry Lime.
Truman Capote and John Huston
wrote the screenplay for BEAT THE DEVIL.
Humor is just as pervasive here as in THE THIRD MAN. Jennifer Jones plays chess with her
husband and remarks to Bogart, “Harry’s been all out of sorts today. Usually he’s a wonderful loser.” And then there’s this exchange when the
Chelms first run into Bogart’s partners in the street:
MRS. CHELM: We
must be wary of those men. They’re
desperate characters.
MR.
CHELM: What
makes you say that?
MRS.
CHELM: Not
one of them looked at my legs.
The Chelms are later called
“two very clever and dangerous antagonists.” The look of the cast is so contrastingly suspicious as to
revive the carnival atmosphere of THE THIRD MAN, and it still holds very true that
the comedy and fun are all well and good, until someone gets hurt. Mrs. Chelm has an affair with Bogart,
while Lollobrigida flirts with Mr. Chelm.
But a murder attempt is made on board the ship to Africa and the
passengers end up adrift on a lifeboat.
In Africa, a Scotland Yard man (Bernard Lee) corners them just as Bogart
& Co. seem closest to pulling off their uranium scheme.
 |
| Motley crew (Peter Lorre, Marco Tulli, Ivor Barnad, Robert Morley). |
Everyone is involved or
becomes involved in some kind of racket.
Boat repairs, diamonds, minerals, real estate, love affairs — it’s all
corrupted just like Vienna and its black market and enemies who work as friends. Bogart, like Holly Martins, is flat
broke. They’re both Americans
trying to make something happen on foreign land, but they’re not going to get
very far because someone who’s supposed to be dead is going to ruin their plans.
ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
 |
| Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint. |
At the beginning of Elia
Kazan’s ON THE WATERFRONT, a young man named Joey Doyle is lured to the roof of
his building where he encounters thugs sent to push the young man over the edge
to his death. Marlon Brando plays
Terry Malloy, the guy who lures Doyle to the roof, and he spends much of the
film trying to hide his involvement.
As Terry later says, he didn’t know they were going to kill Doyle, “I
just thought they was going to lean on him a little bit.” Terry Malloy becomes the third man in a crucial
scenario. Revealing his identity
will be a game changer to the resolution of the film.
In Carol Reed’s film, “the
third man” is the one Joseph Cotten must find in order to learn the truth about
Harry Lime. The police don’t know
about the third man, but they would desperately want him if they did. The same goes for Terry Malloy. Malloy will be pivotal in the case
against Johnny Friendly, the union despot behind young Doyle’s death and
corruption on New York’s waterfront.
Malloy also has something in
common with Cotten’s character Holly Martins. Both men have been slumming. Martins is the author of cheap Western novelettes; Malloy
who was once a prizefighter, now lazes about reading girlie magazines in the
loft. They both know they’re
losers. Martins calls himself “a
hack writer who drinks too much and falls in love with girls.” Malloy famously laments, “I coulda been
a contender, instead of a bum which is what I am.” They’re both hoping that the love of a good woman will
change things. Martins is
infatuated with his best friend’s girl, Anna; Malloy is in love with Joey Doyle’s sister, Edie (Eva Marie
Saint). Both women have very
definite ideas of what they expect the men to do. Anna doesn’t want Holly to betray Harry to the police. Edie wants Terry to come forward with
whatever he knows about Joey’s death.
Another big similarity
between Terry Malloy and Holly Martins is that both of them are constantly
asked to listen up and stay out of trouble. Major Calloway tries to get Martins out of Vienna from the
very start, but Martins stubbornly stays to learn more about his friend
Harry. Calloway says, “Death’s at
the bottom of everything. Leave
death to the professionals.” Anna
also tells Holly not to get mixed up in what happens in Vienna. Even Harry tells Holly, “You ought to
leave this thing alone.” But
typical in these situations, when too many people tell you to stay out of it,
you invariably stick your nose in.
Terry is told by Johnny
Friendly to lay low and not to be a “cheese eater” (i.e. an informant). These warnings are also laid down by
Terry’s own brother Charley (Rod Steiger) who is Friendly’s right hand man. At one point, Charley points a gun at
Terry to emphasize the seriousness.
Disillusioned, Terry criticizes Charley for not watching out for him,
particularly at a pivotal point in his fighting career. Terry believes he could’ve been
somebody; Charley failed him and now Terry has to go his own way.
Visually, WATERFRONT and THE
THIRD MAN make fantastic use of location photography. You feel like the action opens up and the city itself
colludes with destiny. One of the
most iconic images in THE THIRD MAN is the shadow cast by Harry Lime running
away down the dark streets. Eva
Marie Saint and Marlon Brando cast their own iconic shadows in WATERFRONT, when
she and Terry run for the lives as a truck charges down on them.
 |
| Edie and Terry are chased down by a truck. |
There’s brutal death and
terrible reckoning in both WATERFRONT and THE THIRD MAN, but ultimately Terry
Malloy has more power than Holly Martins to do some actual good. It can’t be underestimated that Terry’s
relationship with Edie transforms him.
His prospects improve with her in his life. Holly Martins, however, can’t get Anna to forget her loyalty
and love for Harry and ends up alone.
SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960)
Directed by François
Truffaut, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER pays immediate homage to THE
THIRD MAN with its opening credits.
The titles are superimposed over the interworkings of a piano being
played. This immediately calls to
mind the famed opening credits of THE THIRD MAN, when we first hear zither
music and the strings of the zither tremble as they’re plucked.
For Truffaut’s film, the
piano music is misleadingly cheerful (as the zither is at the beginning of THE
THIRD MAN). The movie’s title,
however, simultaneously suggests something darker. This is followed by an opening sequence in which a man is
running through the streets, in the dark, presumably being pursued. It’s the old film noir fear that
something is going to reach out from the dark and get you, which is certainly
played out in THE THIRD MAN as well.
Based on David Goodis’ novel
“Down There” (1956), SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER is about a shy man played by
Charles Aznavour. He is a pianist banging out popular tunes at a cheap bar.
When his troublemaking thief of a brother shows up on the run from two
criminals, the pianist doesn’t want to get involved, but it’s too late. Soon the criminals shadow the pianist,
in the hope that he’ll lead them to his thieving brothers Chico and Richard.
The pianist has a third
brother, Fido, who is still a boy.
Fido lives with the pianist and is also surveillanced by the criminals
looking for Chico and Richard. The
boy evades the criminals by milk bombing the windshield of their car and
running off. Fido’s move is clever
and even prankish. It echoes that
feeling in THE THIRD MAN of things being a fun game until someone is seriously
injured.
 |
| Following the pianist (Charles Aznavour). [Note the milk on the windshield.] |
Later, Fido is kidnapped by
the criminals, but his captivity seems harmless because he’s not crying or
struggling. In fact, Fido chats
with the men as if they were his brothers. As established in THE THIRD MAN, the irony holds true — our
enemies relate to us on friendly terms.
Like Holly Martins in THE
THIRD MAN and Terry Malloy in ON THE WATERFRONT, the pianist is slumming in his
job. He’s playing in a bar, but he
was once a rising concert performer.
The tragic death of someone close to him led to the shabby life he now
leads. And like Martins and
Malloy, the pianist hopes that the love of a good woman will dig him out of his
rut. The pianist falls for the
barmaid Lena, who knows his past and believes in him. But their relationship is compromised by the pianist’s
thieving brothers. The people
closest to the pianist — his brothers — corrupt his prospects.
In THE THIRD MAN, Joseph
Cotten arrived in Vienna to start fresh, counting on his best pal Harry to make
him successful. Instead, Cotten
gets his hands dirty, betrays his friend, and has to fire a fatal shot. Truffaut’s pianist will also end up a
murderer, despite his best intentions, just like Holly Martins.
Aznavour, as the pianist,
reflects on the irony of being “a murderer in a family of thieves”. The complicated nature of his life
leads him to conclude that “someone could make a poem out of it — a comic one,
for sure.” It’s ridiculous and
absurd as it was in THE THIRD MAN.
You’d laugh if you heard the story told in a bar, except that there are
deadly consequences.
CHARADE (1963)
 |
| Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. |
Writer Graham Greene
described THE THIRD MAN as a “comic thriller” and that’s exactly what CHARADE
is. You might not think that a
film starring the ever enchanting Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant and directed by
Stanley Donen (best known for his glorious musicals) would tread over Carol
Reed’s noir territory so deftly and yet it does.
The opening credits to
CHARADE kick off with a jazzy, mesmerizing theme by Henry Mancini. The accompanying graphics radiate
spirals, mazes, and misdirection — the twisty nature of the film is thus
established with verve. You feel
the sure hand of the people behind the film. They’re very confident of the product they’re delivering,
just as Carol Reed & Co. were with THE THIRD MAN. This is all before you see one frame of the film’s stars.
Our former Holly Golightly,
Audrey Hepburn, has the Holly Martins role in CHARADE. She’s married to a man, Charles
Lampert, she ought to know intimately, but it turns out that she didn’t know
him at all. He’s a thief being
pursued by the ruthless men he’s doublecrossed. While Hepburn is away, Lampert sells all their possessions
and runs off. Unfortunately,
Lampert is murdered before anyone can get the truth out of him. By default, Hepburn is then plagued by
the men her husband betrayed as well as the police — all of them searching for
the money Lampert stole.
Lampert’s influence on
Hepburn’s life is more comic and indifferent than Harry Lime’s part in Holly
Martins’ which is more tragic.
Hepburn admits that she didn’t love Lampert and was going to seek a
divorce. She finds Lampert’s
secretive behavior off-putting and not to be trusted. Holly Martins, however, loves his friend and wants to go on
believing in him.
A funeral is the setting in
both CHARADE and THE THIRD MAN for Audrey Hepburn and Joseph Cotton to meet the
eccentric men who will turn out to be their enemies. The funeral for Lampert is attended by Hepburn, Hepburn’s
girlfriend for support, a French police inspector (cutting his fingernails),
and three mysterious men (Tex, Scobie, and Gideon) who each approach the open
casket and test the body to be sure Lampert is truly dead. Their violation of what should be a
somber and sacred proceeding is darkly humorous. We’re scared of the men (Scobie, in particular, has a metal
hook for a hand), but still keenly drawn in by curiosity. The presence of the French police
inspector suggests that more danger lies ahead. Trevor Howard as Major Calloway attends the funeral in THE
THIRD MAN with the hope of unearthing the truth, despite the death of his
primary suspect as well.
 |
| Menacing characters (James Coburn as Tex, George Kennedy as Scobie, and Ned Glass as Gideon. |
While Calloway tells Holly
Martins to keep out of trouble, Hepburn is recruited by the CIA (specifically
Walter Matthau) to help find the missing money stolen by her late husband. She’s reluctant at first, but hardly
has a choice since she’s constantly menaced by Tex, Scobie, and Gideon. Cary Grant steps in to help her and, of
course, to provide a romantic love interest. Hepburn is openly attracted to him, just as Joseph Cotton
expresses interest in Alida Valli in THE THIRD MAN. Grant and Valli play it cool for the most part. For Grant, this was an off-screen request
not to appear inappropriately lecherous, since he was 25 years Hepburn’s
senior. Valli, on the other hand,
was playing Anna Schmidt’s fidelity to her previous lover, Harry Lime.
In CHARADE, the origin of the
stolen money goes back to the Second World War when Lampert, Scobie, Tex, and
Gideon were in the army together and assigned to deliver gold to the French
Resistance. They hid the money
instead and planned to retrieve it after the war was over and to split it
amongst the group. Lampert,
however, cheated and got to the money before them. Harry Lime’s racketeering is related to post-WW2 conditions
in Vienna when medicine is scarce.
That the criminality is connected back to the Second World War lends
significance to the films. The
crimes seem out of the ordinary and to victimize not just a small group of
people but the greater cause of the war.
Also channeling THE THIRD
MAN, CHARADE offers a carnival lineup of characters—the mustached French
inspector; the droopy dog CIA man Walter Matthau; the tall, lanky Tex; the
short, balding Gideon; and the burly, pirate-armed Scobie — that contrasts with
our debonair couple of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. And if side-show physiognomy isn’t enough, one of CHARADE’s
pivotal settings is the merry-go-round at the Jardin des Champs-Elysees with
Henry Mancini’s theme played as carousel music. The Jardin is full of people, unlike the abandoned amusement
park grounds and the iconic ferris wheel where Joseph Cotten meets up with
Harry. But the sense that things
are on the verge of tilting or reeling out of control is present in both films.
There exists a fifth man who
was originally with Lampert and Co. when they first stole the gold. This fifth man must be found just as
the Third Man must be found in connection with Harry Lime. The appearance of the fifth man in
CHARADE and the titular character in THE THIRD MAN will change the destinies of
all involved.
While the cast of THE THIRD
MAN seems to have the run of Vienna, the characters in CHARADE are set loose in
Paris. Holly Martins chases the
third man through wet, cobbled streets and then below ground through the
sewers. Audrey Hepburn and Cary
Grant have their own chase underground in the subway station and then above
ground by the Palais Royale where they’re joined by Walter Matthau.
I should disclose that
Stanley Donen was quoted in Barry Paris’ biography of Audrey Hepburn, admitting that he
wanted to make CHARADE in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST
(1959). CHARADE has often been
described as “the best Hitchcock film that Hitchcock never made.” But Hitchcock’s style is very studied,
and I think there’s more of Carol Reed’s freshness in CHARADE that perhaps
Donen unconsciously aspired to.
THE DEPARTED (2006)
Martin Scorsese is often
associated with championing the work of Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger. Scorsese established
the Film Foundation which supported the preservation of Powell and
Pressburger’s LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) and THE RED SHOES
(1948). Scorsese’s longtime
editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, is also the widow of Michael Powell.
But there's no denying that Scorsese is a huge fan of
Carol Reed. Apparently, as a film
student at New York University, Scorsese wrote a treatise on THE THIRD MAN,
although his professor dismissed the film with the words: “Forget this, it’s
just [a] thriller.”
Scorsese didn’t forget THE
THIRD MAN and its influence permeates THE DEPARTED. The film is about a hood (Matt Damon) who infiltrates the
Boston State Police as one of their own and a police cadet (Leonardo DiCaprio)
who goes deep undercover and joins up with Boston mob boss Frank Costello
(played by Jack Nicholson and patterned after Boston’s own notorious “Whitey”
Bulger). The film is adapted from
a terrific Hong Kong original, INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002). But according to IMDb.com, Scorsese
didn’t know that until after he agreed to direct THE DEPARTED. He also refrained from watching the
Hong Kong version until completing his own film.
Like THE THIRD MAN,
Scorsese’s film opens with documentary-like footage of the city (in this case,
Boston) and with a voiceover narration.
Jack Nicholson provides the narration and he delivers his character's philosophy as
advice to young ears, “No one gives it to you, you have to take it.” And more ominously, he asserts, “When
you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference [if it’s a cop or criminal]?” Like Harry Lime, Nicholson is enamored
of what he has to say. Harry Lime
questions Holly Martins about the insignificance of people and one’s supposed concern
for them. From his ferris wheel
vantage point, Lime challenges Martins to care, if the dots of people below
disappeared. The message is clear —
right or wrong, it’s “me first” and let the other suckers take the fall.
Mick Brown, in a March 2010
article for the Telegraph, wrote about Scorsese’s understanding of corrupted
worlds:
It
is tempting to think that Scorsese shares [Graham] Greene’s view of human
nature as 'not black and white, but black and grey’. Talking of his film THE
DEPARTED, he once said that what attracted him to the story was that 'Good and
bad become very blurred. It’s a world where morality doesn’t exist, good doesn’t
exist, so you can’t even sin any more as there’s nothing to sin against. There’s
no redemption of any kind.’
Despite the presence of law
and authority, crime persists.
That’s very clear in THE THIRD MAN as well. The man who is doing what’s right (Holly Martins) is
actually doing a very dirty job, and it’s hard to see him as better or
different from the criminal. At
one point in THE DEPARTED, DiCaprio questions if he can be a murderer: “What’s
the difference?” He’s a cop, but
that doesn’t mean he can’t be guilty.
Scorsese punctuates
Nicholson’s narration and an extended opening sequence setting up Damon and
DiCaprio’s back stories with a tough, grinding score. In an interview by Fred Topel for CinemaBlend.com, Scorsese
says:
“I
worked out with Howard Shore that in a way all the characters are sort of
entwined in a web and almost as if they tried to get away from each other,
they're tied together almost like in a dance of death in a way.…Then I wanted
to play on guitars. I love guitars, I think of great guitar scores like the
wonderful film by Irving Lerner called Murder
by Contract with Vince Edwards has a great guitar score, of course the
famous zither score in The Third Man.
And then Howard and I had sort of worked it out, acoustic guitars and electric
guitars different strings, all sorts of different things. When the sound kicked
into electric, it was very strong.”
The score comes out more
Pogues-esque (rough and Irish) than zithering (playful and Viennese), but the
idea of the music drawing us into a story that’s too clever for the characters’
own good is a binding force for THE DEPARTED and THE THIRD MAN.
There’s a funeral at the start
and finish of both films. Early on
in THE DEPARTED, we see that DiCaprio’s mother dies and Frank Costello sends
flowers to the funeral. Though
never fully explored as a paternity issue, it’s suggested to the audience that
Costello could easily have fathered DiCaprio. Thus, the irony of their closeness is made even more complex
and a film noir specialty is reinforced — the one closest to you is your
nemesis.
Another film noir hallmark is
the horror of something coming out of the dark to get you. THE THIRD MAN plays in the shadows and
sewers for the greatest suspense, but a modern film noir comes out of the
dark. The danger is now pervasive
and around the clock. Mark
Wahlberg says of the undercover agents he’s supervising in THE DEPARTED: “My
people are out there. They’re like
[f---ing] Indians. You’re not
going to see them.”
Only one pivotal female role
exists in THE THIRD MAN and THE DEPARTED.
Anna Schmidt is Harry Lime’s lover whom Holly Martins pines after. In THE DEPARTED, Vera Farmiga plays a
shrink who unwittingly becomes involved with both Damon and DiCaprio. Like Anna, Vera is a woman who makes
fast relationships with unreliable lovers.
There are two key
moments in THE DEPARTED that pay homage to THE THIRD MAN, while also having
their own amazing power within the context of Scorsese’s film. The first is a scene in which DiCaprio
follows Nicholson, hoping to find the mole in the State Police Department. He follows a man (who we know is Damon)
down dark, wet alleys. It’s an
intensely dangerous moment. If
either man sees and identifies the other, their covers are blown and all hell
breaks loose. As I recall,
this scene was filmed in daylight in INFERNAL AFFAIRS. But for THE DEPARTED, we get a great
night stalker atmosphere and two shadows, reminiscent of you-know-what, are cast
upon the alley walls.
 |
| Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio cast shadows. |
The second key
tribute to THE THIRD MAN in Scorsese’s film is the funeral (or after-funeral)
at the end. Again, I’m sorry to
spoil things for anyone who hasn’t seen either film, but let it be known that a
reverse “walk of shame” exists in both films, and in both cases, it’s a genius
moment. In THE THIRD MAN, Anna
walks down long path towards us.
And the end of that walk, Holly Martins waits. He’s still hopeful to win her. It’s his last chance, and we know the film is ending. Anna walks straight ahead, eyes forward. And when she gets to Martins, she
doesn’t stop, she doesn’t look his way.
Her expression is stoic and angry at the same time. She keeps walking, until she’s out of
frame. Martins lights a cigarette
and tosses away the match in defeat.
I call it the reverse walk of shame because it’s Martins, not Anna, who
is humiliated and feels guilty for what he’s done.
 |
| Joseph Cotten gets no love from Alida Valli in THE THIRD MAN. |
In THE DEPARTED, Matt
Damon appeals to Vera Farmiga at the funeral. She knows that he’s the mole and that DiCaprio was killed
because of him. Despite their
former relationship and despite the fact that she’s pregnant, she doesn’t want
anything to do with Damon. He
lamely asks, “What about the baby?”, but she walks on, not looking back.
 |
| Vera Farmiga walks away from Matt Damon in THE DEPARTED. |
We’ll always be
running after the Harry Limes of the world, the charismatic ones who promise
opportunities and betray us at the same time. It was Carol Reed who showed us why the chase and the man
are so compelling. Kazan, Donen,
Truffaut, and Scorsese were just as enraptured and found a way to pay tribute
to a master craftsman like Reed.
###
SOURCES:
Brown, Mick. “Martin Scorsese Interview For Shutter
Island”, The Telegraph, March 7, 2010.
Brown, Phil. “Essential Cinema: The Third Man”,
Toronto Standard, May 14, 2012.
Topel, Fred. “Interview:
Martin Scorsese”, CinemaBlend.com, October 2, 2006.
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