History Trivia / TheThirdMan

* CreatorChosenCasting: Creator/GrahamGreene had Creator/OrsonWelles and Creator/JosephCotten in mind for the roles of Harry Lime and Holly Martins respectively, after he saw them in ''Film/CitizenKane''.

** "The Third Man Theme" was Anton Karas' only hit. A full soundtrack album was ready for release when the film premiered, but wasn't released at the time due to lack of interest. While the film brought Karas a lot of attention, he wasn't really interested in being a performing star and eventually retired from the limelight.

* OneHitWonder: "The Third Man Theme" was Anton Karas' only hit. A full soundtrack album was ready for release when the film premiered, but wasn't released at the time due to lack of interest. While the film brought Karas a lot of attention, he wasn't really interested in being a performing star and eventually retired from the limelight.

* CreatorChosenCasting: Creator/GrahamGreene had Creator/OrsonWelles and Creator/JosephCotten in mind for the roles of Harry Lime and Holly Martins respectively, after he saw them in ''Film/CitizenKane''.

** The original script included a return appearance by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, playing Captain Carter and Captain Tombs respectively, similar to Charters and Caldicott, the two English cricket enthusiasts who first appeared in ''Film/TheLadyVanishes'', and later in Carol Reed's ''Night Train to Munich'' (1940). However, the two characters were streamlined into the role of Mr. Crabbin, played by Wilfrid Hyde-White.

* TheRedStapler: In Vienna there are canal tours called "Der Dritte Man -Tour" which visit the exact places where the scenes of Harry Lime being chased by the police were shot.

* ThrowItIn: The hotel manager points in the wrong directions when talking about Heaven and Hell due to the actor's trouble speaking English, which Reed loved as a symbol of post-war Vienna's skewed morality.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Despite only appearing in the latter third of the movie, Harry Lime became such a popular character that a prequel RadioDrama series with Lime as the protagonist (played again by Welles) was produced in 1951-52.

* UsefulNotes/AFIS100YearsSeries:
** AFIS100Years100Movies: #57
** AFIS100Years100Thrills: #75
** AFIS100Years100HeroesAndVillains:
*** #37 Villain, Harry Lime
** AFIS10Top10:
*** #5, Mystery
* UsefulNotes/BFITop100BritishFilms: #1.

* AFIS100YearsSeries:

* BigNameFan: Creator/RogerEbert ''loved'' [[https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-third-man-1949 this movie]], and included in his [[RogerEbertGreatMoviesList Great Movies Essays]]. He later said it was one of the [[https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/ten-greatest-films-of-all-time 10 greatest films ever made.]]

** Graham Greene used to work for British Intelligence in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, where his boss and friend was the DoubleAgent Kim Philby. It's been speculated that Lime (a charismatic yet amoral friend secretly working for Soviet Intelligence) reflected underlying suspicions Graham had of Philby. In a particular irony, after Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to Moscow to escape arrest, Philby fell under suspicion of being "the third man" in their spy ring.

* SelfAdaptation: Creator/GrahamGreene adapted his own novel. It was his only original screenplay.

* CreativeDifferences: During the shooting of the film, the final scene was the subject of a dispute between Creator/GrahamGreene, who wanted the happy ending of the novella, and Carol Reed and David O. Selznick, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what they felt was an artificially happy note. Greene later wrote: "One of the very few major disputes between Carol Reed and myself concerned the ending, and he has been proved triumphantly right."

* OneForTheMoneyOneForTheArt: Creator/OrsonWelles [[OneForTheMoneyOneForTheArt took the role as Harry Lime in order to fund his film adaptation]] of ''Film/{{Othello}}''. Also crosses over into WhatMightHaveBeen, in that Welles was offered either a straight paycheck or a third of the film's gross. He took the paycheck (being desperate for cash), but considering how huge a hit the movie was, had he taken the percentage, he might never have had to do paycheck work again.

** Graham Greene used to work for British Intelligence in [=WW2=], where his boss and friend was the DoubleAgent Kim Philby. It's been speculated that Lime (a charismatic yet amoral friend secretly working for Soviet Intelligence) reflected underlying suspicions Graham had of Philby. In a particular irony, after Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to Moscow to escape arrest, Philby fell under suspicion of being "the third man" in their spy ring.

* RealitySubtext: Graham Greene used to work for British Intelligence in [=WW2=], where his boss and friend was the DoubleAgent Kim Philby. It's been speculated that Lime (a charismatic yet amoral friend secretly working for Soviet Intelligence) reflected underlying suspicions Graham had of Philby. In a particular irony, after Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to Moscow to escape arrest, Philby fell under suspicion of being "the third man" in their spy ring.

** AFIS100Years100Movies:

* ActorInspiredElement / WrittenByCastMember: The cuckoo clock speech wasn't in the original script. It was suggested by Creator/OrsonWelles, inspired by a Hungarian play.

** There was a casting tug-of-war between Selznick and Carol Reed. Reed wanted Orson Welles from the start but Selznick didn't think Welles had enough appeal and tried to push Creator/CaryGrant for the role, before Reed won out. Reed's first choice for Holly Martins was Creator/JimmyStewart, but Creator/JosephCotten got the nod because he was under contract to Selznick.