A great film depends on everything coming together into an unlikely alignment. If a director, actor, screenwriter, cinematographer, composer, or other essential component is lacking, you may end up with only an interesting film that shows promise.

With The Red Shoes (1948), so many things that could have gone wrong, didn’t. Michael Powell could have chosen to use actors who could dance, rather than dancers who could act. His strategy was high risk, but promised to pay off big — if he could find the right dancers. Basing the story on a dark fairy tale from Hans Christian Anderson was equally perilous, unless Emeric Pressburger’s script could successfully emphasize the warmth and humanity of the ballet company, as much as their artistic spirit and integrity of purpose. And inserting a 17-minute ballet sequence, not at the end of the movie as an emotional climax, but near the middle to place the emotional conflicts into stark relief, would have been commercially foolish if not handled skillfully. That all these things succeeded so spectacularly, when any one of them could easily have failed, is a credit to those involved, but also a fortunate happenstance that all the participants agreed to come onboard.

Much of the audience’s empathy is dependent on the acting talent of Moira Shearer, who was just 21 years old at the time. A dancer at Sadler’s Wells (later renamed the Royal Ballet), Shearer wasn’t eager to put her dancing career on hold, as she explains in this 1994 interview with Brian McFarlane for An Autobiography of British Cinema:

I held out against that film for a whole year. The director Michael Powell was extremely put out by my continued refusal. It never occurred to him that a young girl wouldn’t be overwhelmed by his offer. But I didn’t like the story or the script, which seemed a typical woman’s magazine view of the theatre, and I also realized he knew very little about the ballet. Also, at that time, 1946, I had just started to dance the ballerina roles in the big classics and the last thing I wanted to do ‘was to interrupt this difficult work with a sugary movie.’ Powell bombarded me for weeks in 1946 and I remember thinking, ‘I have to get rid of this man.’ However, he finally got the message and went off in a huff, saying to me, ‘I am now going around the world to find the perfect girl for this part.’ He came back a year later; presumably he hadn’t found his perfect girl, though he had now engaged Leonide Massine and Robert Helpmann, both of whom I knew well, as dancer-actors and to arrange the choreography. Powell went on and on at me and I think he must have bombarded Ninette de Valois because she called me to her office and amazed me by saying, ‘For God’s sake, child, do this film and get it off your chest — and ours, because I can’t stand that man bothering us any longer!’ I asked one question, ‘If I do it, can I come straight back to Covent Garden when the film is complete?’ and her answer was, ‘Yes, of course you can.’ And I did — but not happily. There was a lot of jealousy and bad feeling. I’m afraid I was very naive. Helpmann told me later that the only reason de Valois wanted me to make the film was to give advance publicity in America for the first coast-to-coast tour of her company in 1949. Which, of course, is what happened.

Jack Cardiff also wasn’t eager to join the project. He had worked as the cinematographer for Powell on A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and Black Narcissus (1947), but wasn’t enthralled with the idea of photographing a movie about a ballet company. Powell asked Cardiff to regularly attend the ballet at Covent Garden, where he saw the possibilities of what he could bring to the film. One example was a special camera Cardiff designed that let him vary the film speed while the dancers performed. By slowing down their movements imperceptivity, he enhanced the visual impression they were soaring through the air or reaching extreme heights. Cardiff was probably the finest Technicolor cinematographer ever, and two of his films — Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes — are often cited as the best examples of what can be achieved with the Technicolor process.

Though risky, The Red Shoes was a financial success. In the U.S., it began quietly with a 110-week run at The Bijou in New York City and was then picked up for national distribution. It had a strong influence on Hollywood musicals. The extended ballet-like sequences in An American in Paris (1951) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952) might never have been approved without proof there was an eager audience for this merging of art forms.

The Red Shoes
(1948; directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray and DVD)

Sunday, January 12 at 11:45 a.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

How do you top the untoppable? That was the problem facing Busby Berkeley and the Warner Bros. Studio back in 1933. Following the success that same year of 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, how could they make the script funnier, the pacing faster, and — most importantly — the spectacular musical numbers even more spectacular? The answer was Footlight Parade (1933), which is funnier, faster, and more spectacular than its two predecessors.

Footlight Parade may surprise you if you haven’t seen many classic films. You may be aware of Busby Berkeley’s campy musical numbers, but you may not realize how strong the comedic elements are in the earlier (and superior) Berkeley films. Just as Top Hat (1935) is just as good a romantic comedy as it is showcase for great dancing, the first two-thirds of Footlight Parade holds its own against most comedies. The last third of the movie consists almost entirely of the three musical numbers — each one bigger (and more improbable) than the last.

If you haven’t watched Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), you may also be surprised to see James Cagney dance in this film. In fact, he started out as a dancer and was cast as a gangster in The Public Enemy (1931) only after switching roles.

And if you haven’t seen many pre-code Hollywood films from the early 1930s, you may be amazed by how modern they feel, especially in their verbal and sexual frankness. It isn’t anything you couldn’t hear on network television today, but it may be a shock to hear this coming from your grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s generation. One of the musical numbers revolves around a honeymoon hotel where all the guests go by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Here are a few highlights from the movie’s dialogue, which have a refreshing depression-era we’re all in this together attitude:

Chester Kent: Hello, Vivian. This is Miss Rich. My secretary, Miss Prescott.
Nan Prescott: I know Miss Bi….. Rich, if you remember.

Nan Prescott: [to Vivian] As long as there are sidewalks, you’ve got a job.

Charlie Bowers: Is there anything I can do?
Chester Kent: Yeah. See that window over there?
Charlie Bowers: Yeah.
Chester Kent: Take a running jump and I think you can make it.

In my college days, we used to run Footlight Parade regularly during final exams. Just as depression-era audiences craved an escape from their daily trials and tribulations, the exam-weary students responded positively to the film’s snappy comebacks, flawless comic timing, and — yes — glorious excesses contained in the musical numbers. Granted, it’s all a bit silly, but who doesn’t need a bit of silly every now and then?

Footlight Parade
(1933; directed by Lloyd Bacon, musical numbers by Busby Berkeley)
Warner Home Video (Blu-ray and DVD)

Saturday, January 11 at 12:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Howard Hawks is the least appreciated of the great American directors. It took the critics from the Parisian magazine Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s to recognize the consistent style and world view behind such dissimilar films as Scarface (1932), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Air Force (1943), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Of Hawks’ many best-of-breed genre films, Scarface is the most underrated. Producer Howard Hughes withheld the film from circulation in the U.S. after its initial release, so it was almost impossible to see until the 1970s. You had a better chance of seeing the film if you lived in Paris than if you lived in New York or Los Angeles.

Scarface is far more complex thematically and visually than Little Caesar (1930) or The Public Enemy (1931), and much more satisfying. Tony and his henchmen attend a theatrical performance of Rain, another cautionary tale about a man who tries to impose his will on others. Tony has to leave the theater early, missing the downfall of the play’s tragic figure, in order to set in motion the events that will lead to his own downfall. Like the men in Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings and Air Force, Tony and his gang react to life-threatening situations by creating their own rules of conduct and honor. The group is fiercely loyal until someone deliberately crosses the line to threaten the cohesiveness of the group. In virtually all his films, Hawks explores the interplay between individual initiative and group co-operation. It’s the dynamic push-pull between these two forces that drives the characters’ actions and moves the story forward to its logical conclusion. With the Hawks comedies, that universe is turned completely upside down.

Hawks and scriptwriter Ben Hecht populate the sets in Scarface with symbolic Xs and crosses. Look closely, and you’ll see them throughout the film, particularly at critical junctures in the plot. During the production of the film, Hawks ran afoul of the studio censors, who were repelled by the large number of murders and cold-hearted glee with which the gangsters carry out their revenge. Hawks was forced to insert a high-minded introduction and clumsy moral-indignation scene to soften what was thought to be a dangerously immoral film. Hawks also had to tone down the ending. He had wanted Tony (played by Paul Muni) to end face down in a pile of horse manure.

This isn’t just the best gangster movie ever made. It’s a landmark film of the early 1930s, and the first mature work by one of Hollywood’s preeminent directors.

Scarface
(1932; directed by Howard Hawks)
Universal (Blu-ray and DVD)

Tuesday, January 7 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

I had a difficult time compiling my Top 20 Screwball Comedies list. The biggest challenge was where to put Bringing Up Baby (1938). In the end, I gave it the number two spot, right behind Duck Soup (1933). Andrew Sarris referred to Bringing Up Baby as the screwiest of the screwball comedies. In an article titled “The World of Howard Hawks,” which appeared in the July and August 1963 issue of Films and Filming, Sarris wrote:

Even Hawks has never equaled the rocketing pace of this demented farce in which Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn made Barrymore and Lombard in Twentieth Century seem as feverish as Victoria and Albert. The film passes beyond the customary lunacy of the period into a bestial Walpurgisnacht during which man, dog, and leopard pursue each other over the Connecticut countryside until the behavior patterns of men and animals become indistinguishable.

Sometimes it can be instructive to analyze the structure of a comedy, and this one is ripe for that kind of analysis. The world of Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) is dead or dying — dinosaurs, fossils, and museums. Huxley is almost as lifeless. He has no sense that life could be more than it already is. The world of Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) is just the opposite. It’s full of possibilities. In her world, the animals are very much alive. Her life is unpredictable because she’s willing to fail. And wouldn’t you know it, she fails a lot. This isn’t just an unlikely couple. This is a clash of world views. Neither world is complete unto itself, hence the need for a happy ending to merge the best qualities of both.

In the end — no matter the structure — either the dialogue, gags, and characters are funny, or they aren’t. Bringing Up Baby excels in all three. Hawks had a gift for drawing relaxed, seemingly improvised performances from his actors, especially in the comedies. Everything feels effortless and natural, even though almost all of it was carefully planned. Along with the fast pacing, there’s a rhythm to the dialogue that’s both realistic and engaging. Here’s an example:

Susan: You mean you want me to go home?
David: Yes.
Susan: You mean you don’t want me to help you any more?
David: No.
Susan: After all the fun we’ve had?
David: Yes.
Susan: And after all the things I’ve done for you?
David: That’s what I mean.

The two-disc special edition DVD of Bringing Up Baby features a digitally remastered print, as well as a commentary by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, whose comedy What’s Up, Doc? (1972) was inspired by the film. The second disc includes The Men Who Made the Movies: Howard Hawks (1973), a first-rate documentary from Richard Schickel that mixes relevant clips from Hawks’ films with an extended interview with the director.

Bringing Up Baby
(1938; directed by Howard Hawks)
Turner Home Entertainment (DVD)

Thursday, January 2 at 4:45 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

We talk about directors who are open, either to the spontaneity of their actors (Robert Altman) or to chance events (David Lynch). No director has been as open as Jean Renoir. Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) is not only an early sound film for Renoir, it’s an early sound film for the French cinema. Like Rene Clair, Renoir freely experiments with various sound and camera techniques. Yet Renoir’s experimentations are always firmly grounded in the story and characters.

Boudu is the story of a tramp who wants to end his life because he can’t find the dog who has befriended him. Most critics have viewed the film as an indictment of petty bourgeois behavior, but Renoir’s approach isn’t so simple. He also pokes fun at the well-intentioned left, who want to help the unprivileged — as long as they’re kept at a distance. Michel Simon turns in a masterful comic performance as Boudu. He’s simultaneously lovable and irritating, and true to form, Renoir remains impartial. Renoir’s world is large enough to encompass the good and bad aspects of contradictory sides — left versus right, instinct versus convention, self consciousness versus naiveté, and civilization versus nature.

Truffaut and the other New Wave directors were heavily influenced by Renoir’s relaxed and inventive style (Renoir was Truffaut’s favorite filmmaker). They also adopted his realistic approach to filming, which Renoir had picked up from silent director Erich von Stroheim. (Renoir’s films, particularly Toni, also strongly influenced the Italian Neo-Realists.) Not surprisingly, the New Wave was more excited by Renoir’s early free spirited films, such as Boudu and The Crime of Monsieur Lange, than by his later masterpieces, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game.

With Renoir and the early New Wave directors, it’s easy to fall into the trap of confusing an easy and liberated style with technical incompetence. André Bazin writes in his book, Jean Renoir:

One of the best scenes in Boudu Saved from Drowning, the suicide attempt from the Pont des Arts, was made in total defiance of the logic of the scene. The crowd of unpaid extras gathered on the bridge and the river banks was not there to witness a tragedy. They came to watch a movie being made, and they were in good humor. Far from asking them to feign the emotion which verisimilitude would demand, Renoir seems to have encouraged them in their light-hearted curiosity. . . For Renoir, what is important is not the dramatic value of a scene. Drama, action — in the theatrical or novelistic sense of the terms — are for him only pretexts for the essential, and the essential is everywhere in what is visible, everywhere in the very substance of the cinema.

By all means, see Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, which are truly two of the greatest films ever made. But don’t deny yourself the pleasure of watching Boudu Saved from Drowning.

Boudu Saved from Drowning
(1932; directed by Jean Renoir)
The Criterion Collection (DVD)

Monday, November 11 at 4:15 a.m. eastern (late Sun. night) on Turner Classic Movies

Just who was responsible for The Thing from Another World (1951)? If you look at the credits, you can see it was directed by Christian Nyby. But if you ask any Howard Hawks fan, you’ll probably be told it’s pure Hawks. The promotional materials of the time have Hawks’ name in big letters above the title and Nyby’s name below in small print. This ambiguity poses a problem for anyone compiling a Hawks filmography. Some writers include The Thing along with the films Hawks directed, while others — playing it safe — leave it out.

In a discussion with the audience at the 1970 Chicago Film Festival, Hawks was asked if he had directed parts of The Thing. This was his response:

Christian Nyby was my cutter, one of the finest cutters in the business, and I thought he deserved a chance to direct. After he directed a few days, he said, ‘Look, it’s an awful lot different cutting a film somebody gives you and making a film to cut. Will you come down and give me some help?’ I helped him some, but I didn’t come in and direct part of it. I just would say, ‘I think you’re attacking this scene wrong.’

Why are we so sure this is a Hawks film? After all, he didn’t direct or produce any other science fiction films. For Hawks, one-of-a-kind projects were not unusual. Gentleman Prefer Blondes was his only musical, and Scarface was his only gangster film. Hawks liked to work in a wide range of genres, yet his films are remarkably similar in theme and structure. In this case, the isolated group is a collection of military men and scientists stationed in the Arctic region. The external threat is an alien. And the Hawksian woman, who can hold her own with the men without losing her femininity, is a secretary to one of the scientists. There’s also the usual camaraderie, group banter, and overlapping dialogue that make a Hawks film so enjoyable.

While it may be a minor Hawks film, The Thing is one of the better science fiction films of the 1950s. Like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Forbidden Planet (1956), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), it deals with larger issues than whether we can survive an alien invasion. Each of these films also explores what it means to be a human being.

The Thing from Another World
(1951; directed by Christian Nyby; produced by Howard Hawks)
Turner Home Entertainment (Blu-ray and DVD)

Friday, October 25 at 6:45 a.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

What if someone created a murder mystery so entertaining you didn’t care who did the murder? That’s the case with The Big Sleep (1946). Based on Raymond Chandler’s first novel, the story draws private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) into an ever expanding circle of corruption and conspiracy. Eight deaths are woven throughout the book and film, making it unusually hard to keep up with the various murderers and victims. Director Howard Hawks phoned Chandler long distance during the film’s production because he couldn’t figure out who murdered the man who was dumped in the ocean along with his car. According to Hawks, Chandler was unable to provide an adequate solution.

William Faulkner worked on the script, along with Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett. Faulkner had teamed with Hawks, Bogart, and Lauren Bacall the previous year on To Have and Have Not (1944). If you’re familiar with Faulkner’s novels, it’s an interesting game to try to spot the Faulkner dialogue throughout the two films.

Here are a few examples from The Big Sleep that Faulkner may have had a hand in crafting:

Vivian: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they’re front runners or come from behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
Marlowe: Find out mine?
Vivian: I think so.
Marlowe: Go ahead.
Vivian: I’d say you don’t like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
Marlowe: You don’t like to be rated yourself.
Vivian: I haven’t met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
Marlowe: Well, I can’t tell till I’ve seen you over a distance of ground. You’ve got a touch of class, but I don’t know how, how far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who’s in the saddle.

Mars: Convenient, the door being open when you didn’t have a key, eh?
Marlowe: Yeah, wasn’t it. By the way, how’d you happen to have one?
Mars: Is that any of your business?
Marlowe: I could make it my business.
Mars: I could make your business mine.
Marlowe: Oh, you wouldn’t like it. The pay’s too small.

Marlowe: Hmm.
Sternwood: What does that mean?
Marlowe: It means, hmm.

Based on the running time of 114 minutes, it looks like TCM will be showing the 1946 theatrical release of The Big Sleep. The Blu-ray and DVD include the theatrical release, as well as the less-familiar 116-minute prerelease version from 1945. The earlier version has an easier-to-follow, more linear plot. The release version moves along faster, sustains the film noir mood better, and is an overall superior film.

The Big Sleep
(1946; directed by Howard Hawks)
Warner Archive Collection (Blu-ray)
Warner Home Video (DVD)

Sunday, October 20 at 2:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

The Birth of a Nation (1915) is a difficult film to wrap your mind around. Clearly racist in its intent, it’s also a perceptive and ground-breaking film. You may not be accustomed to dealing with propaganda and art in the same package, though there are other examples, mostly notably Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (it praises the rise of Hitler’s Nazi party) and the operas of Richard Wagner (he was anti-Semitic and, by all accounts, a generally odious man). Can we somehow detach the good from the bad? Or should we discard the whole as unredeemably tainted?

In D.W. Griffith’s case, I think we can — and should — separate the racism from the art. I prefer to think his views on race were more naive than diabolical. Because his other work is central to the development of film as an art form, it would seem strange to ignore this film as though it never existed. One of my fondest memories of NYU was watching a single year of Griffith’s films each semester. Jay Leyda, my doctoral advisor, taught the courses. We watched Griffith try out new techniques, set them aside for a time, and then reapply the techniques as he refined his new cinematic tools.

In a 1949 article in The Sewanee Review, Leyda addressed the contradictory nature of The Birth of a Nation:

This film is a constant anxiety to honest critics: “How can I admit artistic or even technical greatness in a film that has written such a history of injury and misuse?” Evasion of this contradiction usually transfers the laurels and emphasis to the “less harmful” Intolerance. Another evasion of this critical hazard is to reject totally the injurious film. This does justice neither to an important film nor to truth, in whose name the rejection is usually made. This film-goer has learned to look at The Birth of a Nation as at two distinct films — and it is the second of these that contains not only the racist melodrama and raw historical distortion of Thomas Dixon’s pennydreadfuls, but also the most dazzling and least useful of Griffith’s innovations . . . One could suspect that, unconsciously, the dynamics of this part of the film were intended to drive from the spectator’s mind those thoughts and questions roused by the film’s first half. For me this first part is self-contained, ending on one of the greatest and most tragically final images of all film-time — the open arms that welcome the returning colonel, stumbling across the pillared porch to his unseen but not unaltered family. This is a film that repays the most minute and repeated examination.

Perhaps the best strategy for understanding this dual-sided film is to watch it simultaneously with two minds. One mind should be skeptical of the historical facts in the movie, especially as they relate to race relations. The other mind should remain receptive to the narrative and technical skills of one of our finest directors. Can sensitive cinematic storytelling coexist with hateful propaganda? Obviously, they can coexist, though there’s still a question as to how much weight to give to the morally despicable elements when evaluating the work as a whole.

The Birth of a Nation
(1915; directed by D.W. Griffith)
Kino International (Blu-ray and DVD)

Friday, October 18 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Ask any film archivist what would be a great find, and you’ll probably hear the words, “the complete Greed.” Greed (1924) was voted one of the twelve best films of all time by an international jury at the 1958 Brussels Exposition. Yet the release version, which runs about two hours, is only a quarter the length of the original rough cut and about half the length of the edited version that director Erich von Stroheim was willing to accept. It prompts the question: If the two-hour butchered version is so good, how much better might the original four-hour or eight-hour versions be? Unfortunately, those versions no longer exist. Whether they were in fact better or not, we may never know.

The first three films Stroheim directed were big financial successes: Blind Husbands (1919), The Devil’s Passkey (1920), and Foolish Wives (1922). His realistic style, obsessive attention to detail, and unflinching character portrayals inspired Jean Renoir to become a film director. Renoir’s realistic style — in turn — inspired the Italian Neo-Realist movement of the late 1940s and early 1950s. By 1922, Stroheim had attained the kind of clout in Hollywood held only by Chaplin and Griffith. When the Goldwyn Company agreed to back his next project, a film based on Frank Norris’ naturalistic novel McTeague, the studio had no idea Stroheim would adapt the entire book and make no effort to sugarcoat the story’s grittiness and stark pessimism.

In his book Saint Cinema, Herman G. Weinberg wrote of Stroheim and Greed:

His fanatical quest for more realistic portrayals sometimes led him to extremes, and Jean Hersholt tells the story of the filming at Death Valley, where Stroheim actually drove his actors frantic until they were in such a state of wrath that they had no difficulty in playing the scenes of the fight at the end of the picture. Stroheim is said to have told them to look at each other with hatred, as if they were looking at him.

Based on the production stills and continuity script, we can piece together what the complete film might have looked like. Weinberg published a book in 1972 titled The Complete “Greed,” where he reconstructed the original cut using 400 stills. In 1999, Rick Schmidlin took the effort even further by combining the existing footage with 650 stills. Through optical pans, zooms, and iris effects, Schmidlin was able to bring a cinematic touch to the stills and successfully fill in many of the gaps in the narrative. This version runs 242 minutes.

Neither the theatrical release or Schmidlin’s reconstruction are currently available on DVD. Turner Classic Movies shows both versions from time to time. All things being equal, it would probably be best to see the theatrical version first, but because they turn up only occasionally, you may want to dive right into the reconstructed version. Either way, you’ll be amazed at the emotional power and visual subtlety that could be achieved with silent film.

Based on the 239 minute running time, it appears that TCM will be running Rick Schmidlin’s reconstructed version of Greed.

Greed
(1924; directed by Erich von Stroheim)

Sunday, September 29 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

We talk about the great directors, yet it’s always a group effort. It takes a strong director to steer the many divergent elements in the same direction. When the process works, all the elements fit together so the result is equal to more than the sum of the parts. The Third Man (1949) is a film where everything meshes — the script, acting, camera placement, lighting, music. It’s probably the best British film made after World War II, as well as the best film noir made in Europe.

Because each of the elements is so exceptional, director Carol Reed is rarely given the credit that’s due. He pushed to have the zither music in the movie. He also argued for the final shot being held much longer than writer Graham Greene or producer David O. Selznick thought appropriate. Selznick wanted to use studio interiors for the production, but Reed preferred the actual war-torn streets of Vienna as a backdrop. The camera and lighting compositions with their odd angles and surreal effects contribute significantly to the atmosphere of the story. The overall look combines the moody darkness of a film noir with the starkness of a you-are-there documentary.

Graham Greene’s script was developed specifically for this project. He also wrote it as a short story, but only to work out the ideas. In his book Ways of Escape, Greene explained, “The reader will notice many differences between the story and the film, and he should not imagine these changes were forced on an unwilling author: as likely as not they were suggested by the author. The film in fact is better than the story because it is in this case the finished state of the story.”

As good as Greene’s script is, the most famous lines from the film were written by Orson Welles. Onscreen for a comparatively short time, Welles’ performance as Harry Lime stands out as one of his best roles. Here are two nuggets from Welles’ self-penned dialogue, where Lime explains to Rollo Martins (played by Joseph Cotten) that it’s a dog-eat-dog world:

Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims?
Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax — the only way you can save money nowadays.

Lime: Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 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 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Avoid the poor quality prints that were struck when the film temporarily lapsed into the public domain. The discs from Criterion and Lions Gate are the best way to see it — other than in a movie theater, of course. I haven’t seen the print that TCM shows occasionally, though that network is usually conscientious in trying to obtain the best available print.

The Third Man
(1949; directed by Carol Reed)
The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray and DVD, out of print)
Lions Gate — StudioCanal Collection (Blu-ray)

Friday, June 28 at 2:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies