Rating: 
Summary: Light Reading
Review: "The Third Man" is an excellent novella of a classic Film Noir. Greene's story was the basis for the script of the Carol Reed film starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. While there are some differences between the two, the heart of the plot remains the same.I truly enjoyed this book, however it was a little short. But, what it lacked in mass it made up for in an engaging plot that captures the reader until they are completely finished. Greene's characters are complex and likeable, even the villain has a certain amount of charisma. Fortunately for those who this book captures, it can be read in one rainy day. And really, it should be read on a dark gray day, or else it kinda defeats the noir mood of the plot. And I'm purposely leaving out the plot because it would ruin the twist at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: A great and suspenseful read!
Review: Graham Greene outdoes himself in this mystery set in Post-War Europe. A taut yarn that in many ways was an early precursor to later books and their filmed adaptations, such as The Ipcress File and Touch of Evil (also starring and directed by Orson Welles). Definitely a must read!
Rating:
Summary: A great and suspenseful read!
Review: Graham Greene outdoes himself in this mystery set in Post-War Europe. A taut yarn that in many ways was an early precursor to later books and their filmed adaptations, such as The Ipcress File and Touch of Evil (also starring and directed by Orson Welles). Definitely a must read!
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting curiosity, but by no means a classic
Review: Greene's novella of The Third Man reminds me a lot of Whit Masterton's Badge of Evil (adapted by Orson Welles for Touch of Evil). It is a pacy story, exciting, with enough to keep a reader's interest, but when contrasted with the film that followed it does not bear comparison. This is simply a film treatment. It was a novella written by Greene to provide a plot, and characters for an original screenplay director Carol Reed wished him to write (following an earlier successful collaboration). It was never intended to be a stand alone novel. And in a fascinating introduction Greene advises the reader of the changes forced on the original screenplay in the collaboration. In the novel the story is narrated by Major Calloway, and is reliant on other's recollections of events (notably the writer Rollo Martins). The central character (Joseph Cotten in the film) is Rollo, not Holly Martins. Rollo being an English writer of Westerns under the pen name Buck Dexter. This leads to a "comic" misunderstanding where Martins is mistaken for a great English Man of Letters, B Dexter. Never convincing the change to an American lead ejects this from the film, and allows the comedy of the literary meeting to arise from Martins championing by Calloway's sergeant in the film. The change to an American lead in the film, and therefore the change in nationality of Harry Lime (originally to have been played by Noel Coward, but thankfully played by Orson Welles in the film) meant that an anicllary character (Cooler) became Romanian in the final film - in order to avoid upsetting American filmgoers. Aside from the changes to character, there are one or two alterations to plot (particularly in relation to Anna). The novella as a stand alone text is a passable entertainment, and demonstrates Greene's ability at creating quirky interesting characters, and giving a novel a sense of place and atmosphere. Vienna is wonderfully evoked (although whether this stems simply from the writing, or is recollections of a wonderful film, I cannot be certain). It does not rank alongside the great Greene entertainments, such as Our Man in Havana; and certainly cannot rate with great novels like The Power and the Glory, The Human Factor, or The Heart of the Matter. This is little more than an interesting curiosity, an opportunity for a reader to view the rough draft of a screenplay for one of the greatest films ever made. From it we learn that Greene could not write a book that was not entertaining, but we also see just how much of a role Carol Reed, actors, and music, had in creating the final film. Film is very much a collaborative process, and this film treatment was written with that very much in mind.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting curiosity, but by no means a classic
Review: Greene's novella of The Third Man reminds me a lot of Whit Masterton's Badge of Evil (adapted by Orson Welles for Touch of Evil). It is a pacy story, exciting, with enough to keep a reader's interest, but when contrasted with the film that followed it does not bear comparison. This is simply a film treatment. It was a novella written by Greene to provide a plot, and characters for an original screenplay director Carol Reed wished him to write (following an earlier successful collaboration). It was never intended to be a stand alone novel. And in a fascinating introduction Greene advises the reader of the changes forced on the original screenplay in the collaboration. In the novel the story is narrated by Major Calloway, and is reliant on other's recollections of events (notably the writer Rollo Martins). The central character (Joseph Cotten in the film) is Rollo, not Holly Martins. Rollo being an English writer of Westerns under the pen name Buck Dexter. This leads to a "comic" misunderstanding where Martins is mistaken for a great English Man of Letters, B Dexter. Never convincing the change to an American lead ejects this from the film, and allows the comedy of the literary meeting to arise from Martins championing by Calloway's sergeant in the film. The change to an American lead in the film, and therefore the change in nationality of Harry Lime (originally to have been played by Noel Coward, but thankfully played by Orson Welles in the film) meant that an anicllary character (Cooler) became Romanian in the final film - in order to avoid upsetting American filmgoers. Aside from the changes to character, there are one or two alterations to plot (particularly in relation to Anna). The novella as a stand alone text is a passable entertainment, and demonstrates Greene's ability at creating quirky interesting characters, and giving a novel a sense of place and atmosphere. Vienna is wonderfully evoked (although whether this stems simply from the writing, or is recollections of a wonderful film, I cannot be certain). It does not rank alongside the great Greene entertainments, such as Our Man in Havana; and certainly cannot rate with great novels like The Power and the Glory, The Human Factor, or The Heart of the Matter. This is little more than an interesting curiosity, an opportunity for a reader to view the rough draft of a screenplay for one of the greatest films ever made. From it we learn that Greene could not write a book that was not entertaining, but we also see just how much of a role Carol Reed, actors, and music, had in creating the final film. Film is very much a collaborative process, and this film treatment was written with that very much in mind.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Finest novels ever Written
Review: I am not going to go into a long winded rant about this novel, as much as I would really like to. This novel, by the brilliant Graham Greene, is timeless. It is a story of honor, friendship, betray and what being human is all about. I think I will let the story speak for itself, and the other million people who write long winded reviews.
Rating:
Summary: augury of ambivalence
Review: In post-WWII Vienna nothing is what it seems. Western pulp fiction writer Buck Dexter is actually British hack writer Rollo Martins. He's come to visit his schoolboy chum Harry Lime, but arrives just in time for Harry's funeral. The gentleman who catches a ride back from the services with Martins, is really a British policeman; turns out, old pal Harry was a black marketeer, selling doctored penicillin that is responsible for numerous deaths. Harry's grieving girlfriend is a Russian refuge staying in Vienna on forged documents. The local Cultural organization that keeps pestering Martins to speak to them mistakenly believes that he is the critically acclaimed writer, Benjamin Dexter. But the thing that is most misleading turns out to be the "death" of Harry Lime, as Martins discovers when he starts trying to find the rumored third man who witnessed Harry's death. When Graham Greene was asked to come up with a script for Carol Reed to film, he saw an opportunity to flesh out the bare bones of an idea--suppose someone saw an old friend, supposedly dead, on the street one day. Of course, Greene & Reed & Orson Welles turned this idea into the great movie The Third Man (1949). For the novel, Greene returned to the scenario and rendered the whole story as he originally envisioned it. Most of the changes are fairly minor--freed of the presence of Joseph Cotten, Martins is English not American--but sadly missing is the famous line from the movie, which Welles apparently wrote himself, about Italy under the amoral Borgias producing magnificent culture while Switzerland's hundreds of years of democracy has produced only chocolates and the cuckoo clock. It does retain the great concluding chase through the sewers of the city, which seem to physically embody the moral cesspool that Cold War Europe was becoming. This is a work that presages LeCarre and much of the ambivalent spy fiction of the 60's & 70's. It is perhaps not quite up to the standards of the movie or of some of Greene's other books, but those are high standards indeed. GRADE: A-
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not great...
Review: Perhaps I was spoiled by seeing the movie before I read the book. (This is one of those rare cases where the movie is better than the book). The story is entertaining enough, and well written. An interesting touch, not possible in the movie, is that the book is told from the viewpoint of Calloway - so there are things he doesn't know, things recounted third-hand, things he gets wrong. There are also a few different scenes in here - notably a kidnapping scene with Anna that was left out of the movie. Nationalities of characters changed in the movie, partly to accomodate the actors (I'm glad Joseph Cotton didn't try to do a British accent for the movie) and also to avoid "upsetting" American audiences (an unsympathetic character becomes Romanian rather than American in the movie). There are two things missing in the book that I thought were breathtaking scenes in the movie: the bit with the cat (the discovery that Lime is not dead) and the "Borgias and the Renaissance; Swiss and cuckoo clocks" line that Welles inserted in the movie. Perhaps I'd have liked the book better if I hadn't seen the movie first. Still, the book version is interesting, as one of the other reviewers commented, as a way of looking at a "rough draft" of a movie script. I'd be much more of a movie watcher if all screenwriters put in as much initial effort as Greene did on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Fast and wonderful
Review: This is a quick and wonderful read, but don't breeze through it too speedily. As with the other Greene novels I've read, The Third Man has much going on beneath the surface, and that is no pun on the setting for the climax of the novel! The real magic in Greene is the treatment of the narrators. It's important to know the narrator, just as it is to know the historian or biographer when you're reading their work. This is really a perfect little thing. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Intrigue, betrayal, and constantly shifting alliances
Review: When Graham Green wrote this in 1949, he had a screenplay in mind. However, even though this short novella is only 157 pages long, it certainly can stand on its own. The setting is post-war Vienna, a once-beautiful city that was now nothing but war rubble. It's administered by the four victorious nations, Russia, France, Great Britain and the United States, and they all communicate with each other in the language of their former enemy. There's a somber mood, a feeling of decay and destruction throughout. And, of course there's a mystery, and lots of suspense, as the reader is swept into a story of intrigue, betrayal and constantly changing alliances. The form is interesting too as it's narrated by a British policeman. He has some interesting philosophical discussions with the lead character, a fellow Brit named Rollo Martins who has been summoned to Vienna by a long-time friend, Harry Limes, only to find a funeral in progress for Limes when he arrives. The mystery deepens as he sets upon doing his own form of detective work. The writing is stark, with excellent dialog and the cast of characters is somewhat confusing at first. As we learn more and more, the book picks up speed and we're hurtled into the conclusion that, while it is satisfactory, never really answers all of the questions raised. With just a few words though, it made me look at some deeper issues than the plot, such as the moral conscience of the characters as well as the particular time period in which they lived. And if there are no easy answers? Well, that's the way life is.
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