The Third Man returns to cinemas and gets a new 4K UHD Anniversary Collector’s Edition this Autumn

STUDIOCANAL are delighted to celebrate the 75^th Anniversary of one of the masterpieces of cinema, THE THIRD MAN, by inviting audiences to enjoy the film back on the big screen where it deserves to be rediscovered or seen for the first time by a whole new generation.  Screening in beautifully restored 4K, the film is still as fresh and enjoyable as the day it premiered in a small Hastings cinema on 1^st September 1949.

Written by Graham Greene (Brighton Rock, The Fallen Idol), directed by Carol Reed (The Fallen Idol, Oliver!) and featuring iconic performances from Joseph Cotten (Gaslight), Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Alida Valli (Eyes Without a Face) and Trevor Howard (Brief Encounters, Sons and Lovers), THE THIRD MAN is celebrated for its endlessly quotable lines, superb Oscar-winning cinematography, iconic musical score and for so many wonderfully entertaining, quintessentially cinematic moments. It will be released in UK cinemas on 6^th September and for the first time ever on 4K UHD this Autumn into Studiocanal’s Vintage Classics Collection.  Special Features on the 4K UHD Anniversary Collector’s Edition will be announced shortly and artwork coming soon.

Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), an American writer of pulp Westerns, arrives in a bombed-out, post-war Vienna at the invitation of his childhood friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find him recently dead.  His suspicions are raised after learning of a ‘third man’ present at the time of Harry’s death, and butting up against interference from British police officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover Anna (Alida Valli).

The atmospheric use of black and white expressionist cinematography and tilted-angled camerawork by Robert Krasker, for which he won an Oscar, combined with the iconic hit theme music by Anton Karas performed on the zither, memorably evoke the noir thriller atmosphere of THE THIRD MAN, voted by the British Film Institute as the greatest British film of all time.  The encounter on the Ferris Wheel and the ensuing Cuckoo Clock speech has become one of the most famous scenes in cinema history.

Marking the second collaboration between the great novelist Graham Greene and director Carol Reed, after their highly acclaimed film The Fallen Idol, Greene’s screenplay for THE THIRD MAN is a superbly skillful tale of deception and black market profiteering, brilliantly recreating post-war Vienna, occupied by the four Allied powers at the start of the Cold War.  Having previously won the BAFTA award for Best British Film for Odd Man Out (1947) and The Fallen Idol (1948), director Carol Reed made it 3 years in a row scooping up the BAFTA again for THE THIRD MAN, winning the Grand Prix in Cannes and receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Director.