THE THIRD MAN (1949)
Carol Reed’s famous postwar film noir, set in bombed-out and cynically recovering Vienna. Screenplay by Graham Greene. Overrated, if you want to know, but its quirky mystique has its insidious impact. Although Welles is onscreen for just a few minutes, when he speaks there’s a striking breach in the artifice - how does he do that? - and the movie comes excitingly alive. Joseph Cotton, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and “oh, that zither!”