Question for Discussion: How does The Third Man
(1949) illustrate some of the classic elements
of film noir in the 1940s and 1950s?

Reading:   Blaser, No Place for a Woman (Web)

Video: America Cinema: Fillm Noir;
The Third Man (1949)

    Critical Reviews of The Maltese Falcon

• The Third Man: Internet Movie Database
  
  
• Roger Ebert: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• James Berardinelli: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• Tim Dirk: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• Dan Jardine: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• Mary Ann Johanson: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• Laura Miller: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• ScreenOnline: Review of The Third Man
  
  
• Efilmcritic: Review of The Third Man
  
  
  Film Noir in the 1940s and 1950s

• Film Noir and the Femme Fatale
  
  
• No Place for a Woman: The Family
  in Film Noir
  
  
• Film Noir's Progressive Portrayal of Women
  
  
• Film Noir Movie Poster
  
  
• Ten Shades of Noir: Film Noir in the
   1940s and 1950s
  
  
• Film Noir: Movie Titles
  

American women in the 1950s

• What Happened to Rosie the Riveter

• The Good HouseWife- excerpt from a 
  1950's Home Economics Textbook

• The Heroic Housewife--A Guide

• 1950s' TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES

• The Feminine Mystique: The Problem that 
  has no Name

• Friedan on the Feminine Mystique

• Friedan on Women and Tranquilizers in 
  the 1950s

  

Reading Films as Cultural Texts

1.  What is the larger story the film tells?

2.  How does the film use characters to develop and reinforce its larger theme?

3.  How does the director use critical scenes in the film to reinforce its larger message?

4.  How does the film's pacing, camera angles, and music reinforce its larger story?

5.  How does the film draw its audience into the story and keep their attention?

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"What is The Third Man is no great mystery: it's one of the greatest expressions of the noir attitude ever committed to film. If noir reflects the cultural anxieties of the day -- as modern noir such as Blue Velvet and Pulp Fiction mirror fears about, respectively, sex and drugs -- then The Third Man may be the truest depiction of the chaos and confusion of the period right after WWII, when national alliances were shifting and the horrors of the war, so recently uncovered, would begin to pale in comparison of those of the politically unstable world the war left in its wake. "
Mary Ann Johanson: Review of The Third Man

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The Third Man is like the exhausted aftermath of Casablanca. Both have heroes who are American exiles, awash in a world of treachery and black market intrigue. Both heroes love a woman battered by the war. But Casablanca is bathed in the hope of victory, while The Third Man already reflects the Cold War years of paranoia, betrayal and the Bomb. The hero doesn't get the girl in either movie--but in ``Casablanca,'' Ilsa stays with the resistance leader to help in his fight, while in ``The Third Man'' Anna remains loyal to a rat. Yet Harry Lime saved Anna, a displaced person who faced certain death. Holly will never understand what Anna did to survive the war, and Anna has absolutely no desire to tell him."
Roger Ebert on The Third Man