Carol Reed's masterpiece, a thriller set in postwar Vienna, The Third Man concerns Holly Martin (Joseph Cotten)'s search for his mysterious friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) through the four war zones of the ruined city. Summoned by Harry, Holly arrives to find his friend dead and a trail of corruption spiralling across Vienna with Harry's signature on it. Broke, confused and alone, Holly is forced to confront his idealism, innocence, and the boundaries of friendship. Any moral consideration of the film ultimately is secondary to its visual presentation. As Graham Greene said, "The Third Man was never written to be read but only to be seen." Photographed by Robert Krasker, postwar Vienna eerily comes to life through its backlit streets, a train's departure indicated only by the light patterns of its windows projected across a cloud of steam, a cat brushing its whiskers against the shoe of a figure obscured by shadows, and the finale, a magnificent chase sequence through, appropriately, the labyrinthine sewers of Vienna.-Diane Gysbers, PFA '86