Book review – “In Search of the Third Man” by Charles Drazin

Everything you wanted to know about The Third Man but were afraid to ask. It was a film that seemed relatively easy to finance, especially compared with today – Korda was keen to use up frozen funds in Europe, hired some talented people and got cracking. Of course, after that it proved tricky, despite the excellence of Greene’s script – Cary Grant turned down the lead, ditto Ralph Richardson for the support; various people including Noel Coward were considered for Harry Lime before Reed persuaded Selznick to cast Orson Welles. (NB Joseph Cotten was a second-tier star but casting him gave not only greater depth to the scenes with Welles, a real-life friend, it made it more believable that Alida Valli walked away from him at the end – Cary Grant, you wouldn’t have believed it.)

Drazin’s scholarship is admirable. He debunks some myths, including Selznick’s supposed non-involvement (even though the American was in decline he still made good suggestions which were taken up). There’s also some fascinating stuff about Greene’s relationship with the spy Philby, and an utterly inspirational story about how Reed decided to use zither music (it was his notion, a brave one and it worked brilliantly, creating film history and changing the life of the person who composed it).

Orson Welles fans will be delighted to read that he takes over the book when he appears rather like Lime does in the film – Korda literally had to hunt him down in Europe to get him to sign the contract, he was a primma donna on set, he had the chance of a percentage of the profits but turned it down because he needed cash, etc. But he did have a later financial windfall from the film – Harry Lime became the hero of a popular radio series.

One gripe – the structure Drazin uses is a little odd. He plunges straight into the story, and doesn’t get around to giving biographies of the lead characters (Greene, Korda, Reed, etc) until towards the end. This took a little getting used to.