Nihilistic Noir

A A A Comments By Jef Otte Thursday, Mar 10 2011

If the majority of post-WWII noir-flick soundtracks are saddled with the standard maudlin strings, then the all-zither score of the 1949 classic The Third Man is a great example of how music can radically affect the tenor of a film. Chipper and upbeat, it gives the proceedings a certain ironic buoyancy that ends up adding to their underlying nihilism: In The Third Man, neither good nor evil deeds amount to much more than a hill of beans.

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

The story follows Holly Martins (played wryly by Joseph Cotten), who has come to post-war Vienna to take a job with his old friend Harry Lime — except when he shows up at Lime’s apartment, he’s told the man was killed in a car accident out front just moments earlier. But Martins, over the course of making friends with an initially prickly British major and developing a crush on Lime’s old flame, begins to suspect Lime is not dead at all. Turns out he’s right: The racketeering Lime is very much alive, and — bonus! — he’s played by a charmingly villainous Orson Welles, who can hardly keep his eye from twinkling as he looks down from the top of a Ferris wheel and offers one of the film’s most memorable lines: “Tell me, would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?”

The Third Man screens tonight at 7 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. at the Mayan Theatre, 110 North Broadway; tickets are $10 general admission. For more information, visit www.landmarktheatres.com or call the Mayan at 303-744-6799.
Tue., March 15, 7 & 9:45 p.m., 2011

Get the Events Newsletter

What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.