The Third Man (1949)

I heard an interview a few years ago with now-former critic A.S. Hamrah promoting The Earth Dies Streaming, a collection of his reviews. He talked about a contemporary review of The Third Man by Manny Farber in The Nation magazine, and, I don't know, I guess this was some sort of revelation to him, reading a review written before the movie attained its current status. Farber was more critical than people writing about it today would be.

I watched the movie again on the Criterion Channel. It was brilliant. I don't care what this Manny Farber person thought. Who the hell was Manny Farber?

I didn't like the anti-Communism. They were in Vienna, a hopelessly corrupt city full of murderous "former" Nazis, and we were supposed to worry that Valli might have to live in Czechoslovakia. She would have been better off in a socialist country. In Vienna, she dated a monster who horribly victimized a large number of children for profit. She knew what he did and still thought he was dreamy.