The third man 1949 - Visually stunning, mysterious British Cold War thriller

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IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Carol Reed
Main Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee

"In this Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Upon his arrival, Martins discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that his funeral is taking place immediately. At the graveside, Martins meets outwardly affable Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and actress Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), who is weeping copiously. When Calloway tells Martins that the late Harry Lime was a thief and murderer, the loyal Martins is at first outraged. Gradually, he discovers not only that Calloway was right but also that the man lying in the coffin in the film's early scenes was not Harry Lime at all - and that Lime is still very much alive (he was the mysterious 'third man' at the scene of the fatal accident). Thus the stage is set for the movie's famous climactic confrontation in the sewers of Vienna - and the even more famous final shot, in which Martins pays emotionally for doing 'the right thing'.
Producer Alexander Korda wanted Noel Coward to play the mysterious Harry Lime, but, once Orson Welles was cast in the part, the movie became a testament to his presence and impact; he's only on screen for about a quarter of the movie, but he's the actor that everyone remembers. In fact, Welles was off shooting another movie, reporting to The Third Man only late in the shooting, and he was doubled for many scenes: that was Carol Reed's assistant, future Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, in the black trench coat running down Vienna's darkened streets, and those were director Reed's fingers reaching through the sewer grating at the chase's end. Recasting Joseph Cotten's Holly Martins as an American in turn allowed Greene to bring to the screen for the first time his antipathy toward Americans and their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed innocence in approaching the world's problems, a theme that would manifest itself even more directly in relation to Vietnam in The Quiet American.
Nominated for several Academy Awards, The Third Man won Best Cinematography for Robert Krasker." - www.allmovie.com

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Gaslight 1944 - A chilling psychological thriller

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IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury

"With three very talented stars (Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten) at the peak of their popularity, 1944's Gaslight is another wonderful, must-see addition to the Cukor filmography. It is a multi-leveled, ceaselessly entertaining film that stands the test of time. Based on Patrick Hamilton's play Angel Street, the script plumbs such ripe topics as manipulation, compulsion, madness and marital relations. Bergman deservedly won an Academy Award for her role as the 'insane' wife who trusts her husband, even if it means she may be going insane; she holds the story together with one of her most impressive performances. It's a difficult character to make believable, but the actress brings such a tethered vulnerability to the part that it gives the film an air of truth and sadness. Gaslight was nominated for seven Oscars - including one for Angela Lansbury's first film role - but Bergman's was the only victory." - www.allmovie.com

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Shadow of a doubt 1943 - Hitchcock's personal favorite

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IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Main Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn

"One of Hitchcock's best films of the 1940s, Shadow of a Doubt is both a fascinating psychological case study and a scathing portrait of the American middle-class family. The film is often considered one of Hitchcock's darkest, and the director himself reportedly claimed it as his favorite. Cynicism underlies all the proceedings, from young Charlie's 'miraculous' summoning of her Uncle Charlie (tantamount to calling up the Angel of Death) to Uncle Charlie's chilling exposition of his view on life, relayed to his niece: 'You live in a dream. Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?' This is one of Hitchcock's most unsettling films, preoccupied like many other Hitchcock works with good vs. evil, and the capacity for evil that lurks within us all; and it is also one of his most stylized, gorgeously shot by Joseph Valentine. Featuring stellar performances from Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten (as well as Hume Cronyn's comical debut as a dim-witted, self-appointed murder 'expert'), Shadow of a Doubt is a memorable experience as both a major Hitchcock film and an enduringly creepy commentary on human nature." - www.allmovie.com

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The magnificent Ambersons 1942 - A mutilated but still a thrilling cinematic experience

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IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Orson Welles (Fred Fleck, Robert Wise - additional sequences, uncredited)
Main Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead, Orson Welles

"Orson Welles' followup to Citizen Kane (1941) was utterly different from Kane in style and texture, but just as brilliant in its own way. Writer/director Welles does not appear on camera, but his voiceover narration superbly sets the stage for the movie's action, which fades in valentine fashion on Amberson Mansion, the most ostentatious dwelling in all of turn-of-century Indianapolis. At the time of its production, Orson Welles was the big noise among new young filmmakers, but not a very profitable one. His first movie, Citizen Kane, had generated press and praise, but not profits. RKO, never a profitable studio and in danger of receivership for much of its history, needed The Magnificent Ambersons to be a hit. Welles had shot Ambersons true to Booth Tarkington's novel and elicited sterling performances from his cast. But Tarkington's story - which Welles deeply loved, having previously dramatized it on radio with himself in the role of George Amberson Minafer - centered on an insufferable prig, selfish, nasty, and vain. Preview audiences came away disliking the movie because they disliked its central character, brilliantly portrayed by Tim Holt. RKO drastically recut the movie, poisoning its relationship with Welles (and with composer Bernard Herrmann, who came to Welles' defense and ended a promising career at the studio). Holt's George Amberson Minafer was, in many ways, the antecedent of Laurence Harvey's Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), a character described by the closest thing he has to a friend as 'impossible to like'. And audiences weren't much more ready for Harvey's character in 1962 than they were for Holt's in 1942." - www.allmovie.com

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Citizen Kane 1941 - Considered as the finest American film ever made

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IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Orson Welles
Main Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Everett Sloane

"Orson Welles's film debut reconceived Hollywood conventions of story-telling and visual structure, suggesting the essential mystery of a person's inner self and inspiring countless filmmakers with its technical accomplishments. Already famous for his work in radio and theater, 24-year-old Welles was given complete creative freedom when RKO Pictures signed him in 1939. Co-authored with Herman J. Mankiewicz, the Kane screenplay dispensed with linear biographical narrative in favor of flashbacks recounting Kane's life from several points of view, ostensibly to solve the puzzle of Kane's deathbed utterance. Collaborating with cinematographer Gregg Toland, Welles used specially constructed sets to compose the film through a number of long takes in deep focus and high-contrast black-and-white, creating meaning through the juxtaposition of multiple actions and characters in a single take rather than through numerous edits. While the imagery and the carefully choreographed soundtrack provide clues to Kane's nature as he ages from innocent boy to corrupt magnate, he ultimately remains an enigmatic figment of memory. Kane's real-life model, however, was no mystery; newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst tried to suppress what he considered an unflattering portrait of himself. While RKO rejected an offer to reimburse their costs in exchange for burning the negatives, Citizen Kane's release was hindered by Hearst's campaign against it. Though non-Hearst papers recognized it as a vanguard work, and it was nominated for nine Oscars (four for Welles himself), Kane was not a popular hit. Despite the film's artistic approbation and subsequent wide-ranging influence, from 1940s film noir to the French New Wave to American film school grads, Welles never again had creative control in Hollywood." - www.allmovie.com

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