Los Angeles Film Festival

LA/SF Press Screenings: 4k Restoration: THE THIRD MAN - With New Trailer

The new 4K restoration of Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN, starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and Orson Welles, opens Friday June 26 at New York's Film Forum and Friday July 3 at Landmark's Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles! Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or, Oscar®-winner for Best Cinematography, and Oscar®-nominated for Best Director, THE THIRD MAN is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made! 

“ONE GREAT SCENE AFTER ANOTHER! ONE GREAT SHOT AFTER ANOTHER! I’VE SEEN IT 50 TIMES AND IT’S STILL MAGIC!”
– Roger Ebert 

CAROL REED'S

THE THIRD MAN

STARRING JOSEPH COTTEN, ALIDA VALLI & ORSON WELLES

NEW 4K RESTORATION – FIRST MAJOR RESTORATION

Carol Reed’s Film Noir masterpiece THE THIRD MAN (1949), starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and Orson Welles, will run at Film Forum from Friday, June 26 through Thursday, July 9 (two weeks), in a new 4K restoration – its first major restoration ever. The film will also open in major cities including Los Angeles (July 3, Landmark Nuart Theater) and San Francisco (July 3, Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema).

In rubble-strewn postwar Vienna, pulp Western writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives to meet up with his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find that he’s dead — or is he? As the supremely naïve Cotten descends through the levels of deception, and discovers his friend’s corruption, the moral choices loom. A triumph of atmosphere — with its Vienna locations (including the gigantic Riesenrad Ferris Wheel and the dripping sewers), its tilted camera angles, shadows, and unforgettable zither theme — and with its stars in perhaps their most iconic roles: bereted Trevor Howard at his most Britishly military; Alida Valli, truly enigmatic and Garboesque; and Welles, arriving in one of the greatest star entrances ever (he added the famous “cuckoo clock” speech to Graham Greene’s original script); and topped by its legendary, almost endlessly drawn-out final shot.

A rare collaboration of legendary producers Alexander Korda and David O. Selznick, THE THIRD MAN was Reed’s second collaboration with novelist/screenwriter Greene. An instant critical and commercial sensation, it won the Palme D’Or at Cannes, the British Film Academy’s Best British Film award, and three Oscar nominations: for director Reed, editor Oswald Hafenrichter, and cinematographer Krasker, with a win for the latter’s expressionist, now iconic b&w cinematography. Anton Karas’ haunting “Third Man Theme,” performed by the composer on a zither, was a worldwide hit.

THE THIRD MAN remains the only movie on both the American Film Institute and British Film Institute Top 100 lists of, respectively, the greatest American and British films of all time (the Brits named it their Number One), as well as being as well as being named The Greatest Foreign Film of All Time… by the Japanese.

The award-winning team at Deluxe Restoration carried out the new 4K digital restoration of THE THIRD MAN on behalf of Studiocanal. Following rigorous comparison of different available elements, the 4K scan was done from a fine grain master positive struck from the original camera negative.

93 Mins | A Rialto Pictures Release
Director: Carol Reed | Screenplay: Graham Greene | Music: Anton Karas | Cinematography: Robert Krasker

“One of the most intense atmospheres the screen has ever delivered!”
– David Thompson

“The supreme movie about the night world, the ultimate example of that shining-streets-and-lurking-shadows 'realism.'”
– David Denby

“Welles haunts each scene: everywhere and invisible, he’s a smirking Cheshire cat of a villain, a superb case study in shameless charisma as poisonous contagion.”
– Ben Walters, Time Out (London)

“No matter how many times I saw it over the years its magic never failed. I kept discovering dark new delights, and the classic moments remained every bit as classic. I can only envy the viewer who gets to encounter Reed’s movie for the first time.”
– David Ansen