THIRD MAN, THE

(February 1950, U.S.)

The first thing you have to ask yourself when watching Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN is, are we truly and honestly watching the work of Carol Reed or did Orson Welles himself step in as director of this British film noir? This was the speculation, and perhaps even misconception, over the years following the film's release. Too much of the film's style, editing, themes and overlapping dialogue seem to echo Welles's previous work. True or not, these sort of myths die hard. Does THE THIRD MAN remind you more of CITIZEN KANE or Reed's own NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH? Judge for yourself just how far Welles's influence went.

The film is set in post-World War II Vienna, Austria. Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotten) is an American author of pulp-westerns who's just arrived in the city of ruins, having been offered a job by his friend Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles), only to discover upon his arrival that Harry is dead, a suspected victim of murder. Holly proceeds to meet with the people in Harry's life, including the British Army police inspectors, to investigate the suspicions surrounding his death. The impoverished, post-war city itself is a thriving environment of opportunistic racketeering divided into the American, British, French and Soviet sectors, as Holly soon discovers during his investigations. He eventually learns that his beloved friend Harry was, in fact, a criminal, and is pressured by the police to leave the city rather than take his inquiries any further. Refusing to leave town, Holly also befriends Harry's girlfriend Anna Schmidt (played by Alida Vallie), who's also an actress. Anna is the first one to suggest that Harry's death was not accidental. It seems that as soon as Harry was killed by a car, he was immediately carried off the street by someone else in addition to the two friends who were reportedly - a third man. For a time, Holly himself is suspected by the townspeople as being that third man.

Still refusing to leave Vienna, Holly finally learns from the police that Harry had been stealing large quantities of penicillin from military hospitals, diluting it, and then selling in on the black market for a high profit. As a result of the dilution, many patients died and many children were left brain damaged for life. The mounting and undeniable evidence finally convinces Holly of just who Harry really was, and finally agrees to leave town, disillusioned. Now drawn to Anna himself, Holly prepares to say goodbye, but is delayed when he thinks he notices someone strange and suspicious standing in a dark doorway. Through the camera's use of light and darkness, a resident's lit window briefly reveals the person to be Harry Lime himself. This is a rather important visual moment in the film, because it not only reveals the truth, but it also reveals the visual charm and wit that can only be evident in the smile of Orson Welles himself. That moment is only very brief before Harry is off and running into the city sewers. The British police immediately exhume Harry's buried coffin to discover that the body is that of an orderly who stole penicillin for Harry and was reported missing after turning informant.

The two old friend eventually meet in secret as they the Wiener Riesenrad, Vienna's Ferris wheel. Harry proceeds into a lengthy monologue (told with that irresistible Orson Welles charm) on the insignificance of his penicillin victims, revealing the full extent of criminal activity and his lack of morality. Realizing he can't convince Holly to see his side of things, Harry takes off again, and is soon beneath the bowels of the underground sewer system. Trying to escape the police who are hot on his trail, he's eventually shot and killed. The final resolution of the film is left with a sense of ambiguity, as Holly attempts to speak to a twice-heartbroken Anna at the cemetery, but is only left with her walking past him and fading into the unknown distance.

Cinematographer Robert Krasker's use of harsh lighting, as well as a distorted "Dutch angle" camera lens technique gives this classic black and white film an enriched, atmospheric form of expressionism. Its post-war seedy locations, iconic theme music on the zither by Viennese composer Anton Karas and solid performances by its players, give THE THIRD MAN the effective atmosphere of a city that's not only exhausted by war, but also insecure, cynical, and even criminal in the way it conducts its every day life and routines just at the time the Cold War is beginning. Indeed, the city of Vienna may be seen as a tragedy that must confront its troubled existence. It's look, its subtle physical details, and its plot twists and turns may be easily compared to some of Alfred Hitchcock's earlier works of the '40s. Whether we can ultimately credit Carol Reed or Orson Welles with the film's success, it's clear that THE THIRD MAN reveals itself as an intriguing cinematic package of story and camera tricks whose result may be on the cusp of pure genius. As noir, there's also that touch of mischievous and devilish humor told with darkness and depression that made the American style of filmmaking in the 1940s and 1950s so legendary...only this time, it's done by the British and a man like Orson Welles whose smile and charm may have been just one of the most villainous things we've ever seen in film...

Favorite line or dialogue:

Harry Lime: "Like the fella says, in Italy for thirty 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 five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

THIN RED LINE, THE (1998)

(December 1998, U.S.)

At the start of writing this blog, I'm just learning that Terrence Malick's (BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN) epic war film THE THIN RED LINE is, in fact, a remake of a previous 1964 adaptation of James Jones's original novel. In a way, that's disappointing, but it doesn't deter for a moment what a spectacular war film this under Malick's direction, released just in the wake of Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN the previous summer.

One of the most distinguishable things about war films is that the action and drama of combat almost never changes. It's blood, guts and glory all the way, particularly when the story is centered during World War II and our brave fighting men in the Pacific. Although it may be hard to grasp the details of this film while you're watching it, the mission is a, more or less, straightforward arrival and departure of American soldiers of an island in the South Pacific with the sole objective of securing a field being held off by the Japanese. The process of achieving their objective is a slow and tedious one, with many human casualties along the way.

What we have to remember here is that while this is essentially a combat film, we're also watching a Terrence Malick drama in which human thoughts and emotions are narrated and felt in conjunction with the horror of war and the salvation of finding peace. When the film opens, life is calm and peaceful for a U.S. Army Private who's gone AWOL from his unit and is living among the carefree Melanesian natives. We hear his thoughts and feel his feelings of joy and contentment, but this last only until he's inevitably found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by his superior sergeant and eventually thrown back into the mix of his unit. The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field and seize the island from the Japanese. Throughout out their ordeal and their fears, the men contemplate the invasion and the meaning of their lives.

Malick's film settings may be considered a virtual "Eden" or a "Paradise Lost", raped and pillaged by the poisons of war. Combat is bloody, to be sure, but very often their are shots in the film that avoid too much gore and perhaps focus more on the explosion of a tree, the shredding of vegetation or perhaps even the close-up of an exotic bird or alligator. The director's unconventional filming styles and techniques include the beauty of a bright, sunny morning within the majestic glory of high trees, or just the simplicity of a tree branch or a parrot.

As a World War II film, THE THIN RED LINE is daring, if not philosophical in its approach to what makes the American soldier tick in a time crisis and uncertainty. It's often confusing, even while it fascinates. The battle scenes are masterful in their own right, though it may evoke similar comparisons to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, as well as Oliver Stone's 1986 Best Picture Oscar winner, PLATOON. Truth, or whatever we wish to consider to be truth, is hardly based on the facts of war, but rather the emotions expressed by the human heart and the mind's wisdom. Out of death and destruction, we're meant to believe and understand that love, life and creation can ultimately grow.

Like THE LONGEST DAY (still my favorite war film, by the way) the players are extensive, while avoiding too much attention to making any particular actor a star of the film. In a cast that includes great actors like Sean Pean, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Ben Chaplin, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, John Travolta and George Clooney, we may easily take notice of principal players like Penn, Caviezel, Chaplin and Nolte who manage to maintain the perfect tone and rhythm for scenes that may not last more than a minute or two. They're all big stars in our minds, but on the screen and in the jungles, these bright stars may also be interpreted as fallen angels...who just happen to be men who are big stars. It's elements like this that made THE THIN RED LINE (and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) two of the best war films of the 1990s. I didn't truly get sucked into a well-crafted war film like that again until Christopher Nolan's DUNKIRK (2017).

Favorite line or dialogue:

First Sergeant Edward Welsh: "Property! The whole fucking thing's about property!"

THING, THE (1982)

(June 1982, U.S.)

I've said this before, and it looks like I'm about to say it again...as a general rule, I don't care too much for remakes. But I'll also say again that even the strictest of general rules have their exceptions, and every once in a while, a remake comes along that's not only worthy of its original version, but also outsoars it. For my tastes, it seems that many of these exceptions have been in the form of horror that have included titles like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978), DRACULA (1979), THE FLY (1986) and absolutely, positively John Carpenter's THE THING. For all of its popularity and positive feedback today, the film did little to gain attention at the box office with audiences and critics, and that may have had much to do with a squashy, little optimistic alien visitor who just wanted to "phone home". For myself, I didn't see THE THING during the summer of '82, and that was my own fault, because I chose to see the Disney computer film TRON instead with some camp friends one night at a quad movie theater that also offered THE THING.

Set in the present day of 1982, a group of American researchers based in Antarctica, led by R.J. MacReady (played by Kurt Russell) encounter the alien invader who was discovered buried in the ice. Unlike the original film, however, their ill-fated experiences come to them almost by accident. Beginning with a Norwegian helicopter pursuit of a sled dog to their research station, the American witness a Norwegian helicopter passenger gone mad with a rifle, hell-bent on killing the dog. Because of the foreign language, the Americans can never know why the dog is such a threat. The Norwegian is killed, leaving open the great mystery of what took place at the foreign base without investigation. Among the charred ruin and frozen corpses that MacReady and a member of his team discover, they also find the remains of a malformed humanoid which they decide to bring back with them. It's not long before our mysterious sled dog reveals itself to be a victim of alien metamorphoses. This is not only the point where the team discovers just what they're up against, but also where the movie's audiences discovers just how sick and gross THE THING really is. In fact, even to this day, I still watch the film with an unnerving sense of dread in knowing that the alien creature effects continue to be some of the grossest things I've ever seen on film (we can thank effects men Rob Bottin and Stan Winston for that!). In fact, that scene with the defibrillator and arm chomping still makes me cringe...

Amidst the chaos of alien attacks and defense in the form of bullets and flamethrowers, the entire American team is slowly picked off, or shall we say "alienated", drawing parallels from the process of elimination in Ridley Scott's ALIEN or even Agatha Christie's classic tale of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. But even more than the physical attacks and action of THE THING is the psychological paranoia that exists among the men and the horrible reality of not knowing who is, indeed, human and who can be trusted in the midst of the 1980's Cold War era, proving the classic cliché that man is very often his worst enemy. Even when the alien, which we can always physically see, but are never entirely sure of its true identity, is predictably destroyed in the end by a massive explosion that will inevitably lead those left of the team to freeze to death, we still can't be completely sure of whether or not the monster is truly dead yet, especially since it has returned with a vengeance multiple times throughout the film. In the end, it's really just the pleasure of watching Kurt Russell's "I don't give a fuck" attitude as he sits in the snow with a bottle of J&B scotch, watches the camp burn and waits to die. This ending is considered ambiguous and may have even left things open for a sequel at the time (thank goodness, it never happened).

The film never explains or gives much of a motive for its actions, but rather ruthlessly pursues its goal in the name of pure survival, and that also speaks true for the alien creature itself, which attacks, consumes and absorbs as a result of its own fears and paranoia of being a "stranger in a strange land". The men, however, are still considered free-thinking individuals of free will, though that will is easily stripped away when "the thing" enters their lives and quite literally, enters their bodies. Perhaps one of the more optimistic moments of the film amidst the chaos of uncertainty is when MacReady declares to the rest of the men, "I know I'm human!", thus declaring to all of us that we must hold onto whatever optimism of human reason and compassion may remain within these frightened individuals, and remember that it's always better to be human than it is to be an alien imitation. Even the blood test scene of THE THING may invoke the unpleasant memories of the AIDS crisis in the early '80s in determining who was healthy and who was not, thus also determining who would be treated like human beings by those who allowed their fear, paranoia and mistrust to get the better of them.

Favorite line or dialogue:

R.J. MacReady (just before destroying the alien): "Yeah, fuck you, too!"

THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE

(April 1951, U.S.)

In the catalogs of cinema history, the Cold War of the 1950s ushered in a wave of science fiction films that preyed upon the fears and paranoia of American citizens at the time. Suddenly, the threat of any sort of foreign invasion was on everyone's minds, and on screen, it often came in the form of aliens from other worlds. From THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL to WAR OF THE WORLDS, we were forced to recognize even the remote possibilities that we were not only alone in this universe, but were also subject to potential harm, as well. This was almost perfect for low budget material, or 'B' movies, as they were often called, such as THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

This black and white classic tells the story of a United States Air Force crew, scientists and a newspaper reporter stationed in Anchorage, Alaska who discover a crashed flying saucer and humanoid body frozen nearby in the Arctic ice. After inadvertently exploding the spaceship buried in the ice, they unearth the body and return it in a block of ice to their remote research outpost, where they are forced to defend themselves against this mysterious alien when it is accidentally revived from its sleep after an electric blanket is carelessly placed upon the block of ice. Two dogs are killed first, but not before one of them tears the creature's arm off. Upon examining the arm, the head scientist Dr. Carrington (played by Robert Cornthwaite) concludes that the alien is some sort advanced form of plant life with a far superior intelligence to man's, and is determined to communicate with it, even if it means the lives of everyone there.

As members of the crew repeatedly fight off the alien, or "the thing", we're taught what is supposed to educational information regarding plant life and their ability to think. This is sometimes a bit hard to digest, considering the alien looks very much like the form of a man (played by James Arness, who would later star in TV's GUNSMOKE). Taking continuous hits from the crew, including burning from torched kerosene, the creature survives their attacks and retreats before returning to attack again. Mind you, this is the 1950s, so these attacks are no more visually threatening that the creatures appearing at the door, or at worst, a violent swipe with his powerful arm. Regrouping for its final showdown, the crew organizes a plan to sabotage the creature with a rigged "fly trap" of electricity. At the alien's final attack, Dr. Carrington is wounded when he (rather stupidly) attempts to talk to the creature. The thing's demise is a shocking one (no pun intended) as it's reduced to mere ashes in what was surely considered an effective visual climax of electrical destruction...

...and while the alien's invasion can hardly be compared to any sort of global apocalyptic event, we're stilled warned at the end to "keep watching the skies".

By today's standard (and a very superior 1982 remake by John Carpenter), THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD is hardly a scary piece of sci-fi. However, one must consider that back in the 1950s, parents may have had to think twice before allowing their children to see this movie if their emotional fears weren't properly conditioned. Not to suggest that the movie isn't filled with plenty of old fashioned monster fun. Still, even as compared to KING KONG (1933) or the many Universal Pictures monster stories that preceded it, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD may be just another Saturday matinee flying saucer-monster movie. But even if that's all it's limited to, that may not be so bad, just so long as you don't mind watching actor Kenneth Tobey constantly smile at everyone no matter how threatening or perilous thing get. I mean, geez, what the hell is that man always so damn happy about??

Favorite line or dialogue:

Ned Scott: "And now, before giving you the details of the battle, I bring you a warning. Every one of you listening to my voice, tell the world...tell this to everybody, wherever they are...watch the skies...everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies."

THIEF

(March 1981, U.S.)

For the purpose of writing this post, I re-watched Michael Mann's THIEF for the first time in over ten years. While I was watching it, I was repeatedly overwhelmed with thoughts that began with "I remember" and "Whatever happened to?" Whatever happened to major motion pictures directed by Michael Mann since PUBLIC ENEMIES ten years? Whatever happened to the intense, edge-of-your-seat thriller that wasn't necessarily a hardcore action film? Whatever happened to movies scored by the electronic musical genius of German band Tangerine Dream? I remember when I was addicted to the music of Tangerine Dream through much of my new age music obsession during the 1990s. I remember when actor James Caan was a real bad-ass son of a bitch, even when he wasn't a Corleone. I remember when THIEF was considered my favorite thriller before it was eventually replaced with John Frankenheimer's 1977 film BLACK SUNDAY. All of this is not to suggest that THIEF is a perfect thriller. Michael Mann's touch for this genre would later be improved, in my opinion, with later films like MANHUNTER (1986) and HEAT (1995). However, for a period at the beginning of the 1980s prior to the action vehicles of men like Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, THIEF fits in perfectly among other thrillers of 1981 that include ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and NIGHTHAWKS.

James Cann plays Frank (no last name is given), a professional safecracker and jewel thief seeking to escape his life of crime and settle down to a normal and structured family life with his girlfriend Jesse (played by Tuesday Weld), even as he fronts his criminal enterprises with a successful Chicago car dealership and a bar. After taking down a successful diamond score with his partner Barry (played by James Belushi), Frank is inevitably sucked into meeting with the unknown high-level fence and Chicago Outfit boss ultimately behind all of the operations he's pulled off so far, Leo (played by Robert Prosky). Leo expresses his admiration for Frank's style and professionalism for eyeing quality stolen property and offers him the opportunity to work directly for him, offering large profits and extra incentives. As a "self-employed" independent contractor who answers to no one, Frank is reluctant and doesn't hide his verbal contempt in working for a crime boss, not wanting to increase his exposure. However, it's easy to give in to the temptations of the favors a man like Leo can provide, including access to a beautiful house, a new baby boy, and protection from corrupt police shakedowns. Frank eventually gives in to a large scale diamond height in California organized by Leo for what's promised to be a promised cash payoff of over eight hundred thousand dollars. Returning from the successful job, Frank is screwed when he receives only a fraction of what he was promised. Frank pulls a gun and tells Leo that their deal is over and takes the cash as he leaves, demanding the rest of his money in twenty-four hours. Before any of this can happen, Frank is captured and told the true nature of things. Leo owns him, his career and his family and will destroy all of it if Frank doesn't continue to work for him at his demand. Now a man with a hardened heart, he sends his wife and child away forever and blows up his house and his businesses. With nothing left to loose, he seeks revenge against his enemies, armed only with a single pistol. One man against many, Frank destroys all those who sought to destroy him and walks away into the night, his future uncertain.

THIEF being Michael Mann's feature film directorial debut, it features many of the cinematic techniques that would be his trademarks in the years to come, including cinematography, which utilizes light and shadow to give a strong sense of danger during scenes taking place at night. The film pays close attention to meticulous detail, even employing the consulting advice of real-life thieves to serve as technical advisers. As a thriller, it hold a much higher level of intelligence as it may be compared to some of the more modern heist films we've seen over the last two decades, including two many OCEAN'S films. James Caan is the traditional tough guy with a gun who still manages to make us believe that he can love in the traditional sense, if only given the proper change. Tangerine Dream provides some of the best cutting-edge electronic music that combines intensity, as well as a moody soundscape at the beaches of California (I own the soundtrack!). As previously stated, I miss them and would love to see them perform live, if only they'd come to New York.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Frank: "I am the last person in this world...that you wanna fuck with!"