“The Fallen Idol” (1948)
The middle, and least widely seen, of the three consecutive features that are really the reason cinephiles collectively lose their shit for Carol Reed, “The Fallen Idol” is also remarkable for being the first time Reed collaborated with writer Graham Greene, establishing a three-time partnership (also “The Third Man” and “Our Man in Havana“) in which each truly brought out the best in the other. Based on Greene’s own short story “The Basement Room,” it tells the story of young Phillippe (Bobby Henrey), the emotionally neglected son of an ambassador, who forms an attachment to the embassy butler, Baines (a wonderfully sympathetic Ralph Richardson), but is conflicted when he believes he witnesses Baines kill his overbearing, cruel wife. Greene’s script is wonderful, but the filmmaking is what truly sets “The Fallen Idol” apart, with Reed equally adept at establishing the vital geography of the vast, dust-sheet-laden embassy, as well as the film’s more intimate set pieces. Those smaller moments, in fact, might be where the film comes most alive — like when Phillippe barges in on a clandestine meeting between Baines and his lover, Julie, and the two have to conduct the heartbreaking negotiations of the end of their relationship in a makeshift code. Or when we feel Phillippe’s jealousy of Julie during a trip to the zoo. Or in just how accurately Reed captures the sheer boredom, frustration and confusion of being a kid in a grown-up world as Phillippe clatters through the empty hallways, eavesdropping on adult conversations without understanding them, and talking self-pityingly to the small snake he keeps secretly as a pet. If anything at all mars “The Fallen Idol,” though, it might be the slightly false feeling to the film’s happy ending, which undercuts the moral about the dangers of secrets somewhat, and kills the tension with a lighthearted “everything’s going to be all right” vibe that runs counter to the broodiness of the source story. Conversely, the following year, Reed would firmly dictate that the ending of the screenplay for “The Third Man” not follow Greene’s source novella for precisely the opposite reason: the ending Greene had originally written was happier than the compromised and ambiguous one in the film. Greene later conceded that Reed had been proven “triumphantly right” on that occasion, and we can’t help but wonder if “The Fallen Idol”‘s many merits would have been more celebrated if he had done something similar here. Whatever the case, it’s a beautifully made and worthy addition to the central Holy Trinity of Carol Reed films, especially as it finds Reed working in a very different, more observed, less overtly expressionist register than the films with which he’s most associated.
“The Third Man” (1949)
As though the planets had been inching toward alignment with his previous two features, in 1949, for a brief moment, perfect syzygy (somehow a very Harry Lime word) was achieved with Reed’s undisputed masterpiece, “The Third Man.” A film dangerously close to perfection in every frame, it is a rare example of every single aspect of the filmmaking process being so perfectly achieved of itself that to think of any one will immediately call something unforgettable to mind. Think of the dialogue and you’ll likely remember the “cuckoo clock” speech of Lime’s; consider the locations and you think of that fabulously evocative, ruined Vienna, all crumbled steps, cobbles, archways and vaulted sewers; think of the soundtrack and that Anton Karas zither track, that spent 11 weeks at the Billboard number 1 spot and spawned 4 other versions that charted the following year will instantly earworm its way into your day; think of Robert Krasker‘s extravagantly gorgeous, Oscar-winning cinematography and you think of small men casting huge shadows, low, off-kilter angles and figures melting into darkness. And think of the cast and you’ll undoubtedly remember Orson Welles‘ brilliant little sphinx-like smile when he’s introduced wordlessly in that flare of light. Welles is arguably even more impressive here as an actor than in “Citizen Kane” for being so sparingly used — barely onscreen for fifteen minutes, it is hard to think of any other actor, perhaps save Brando, who could possibly have lived up to the extended buildup that his character is given. But in just that witty, impish face and amused, ironic expression Harry Lime, whose massive shadow has extended over the whole film to that point, is brought to blistering life, and we understand immediately all the things he is: a dangerously charismatic joker, a careless lover, a selfish monster, a rat who will die in the sewers where rats belong. (Trivia: in my personal favorite shot in the whole film, it’s Reed’s fingers sticking out through that grate, not Welles’). It’s often been said of Reed that he was only ever as good as his collaborators and that’s probably true. But these great collaborators were each in such peerless form that Reed’s meticulous, instinctive, expressive talents rose in accordance, lending a magnifying and focussing effect to each of their contributions, and delivering a seamlessly brilliant, holistic film. In fact, we’d go so far as to say that for a time at the end of the 1940s, despite a role-call of filmmaking geniuses likeMichael Powell, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, John Ford, John Huston, David Lean, Billy Wilder and Orson Welles himself all being at the height of their activity, the unassuming, modest Carol Reed was simply the greatest film director in the world, because of “The Third Man.”
READ MORE: 5 Things You May Not Know About ‘The Third Man’
“Our Man in Havana” (1958)
Of course the legacy of “The Third Man” tends to obliterate the other collaborations that Reed had with writer Graham Greene, but the fact that their partnership always gave rise to something special was never more in evidence than with the 1958 adaptation of Greene’s own popular satirical spy novel, “Our Man in Havana.” Reed had gone into a creative slump after the enormous success of their last Vienna-based team-up, dabbling in color with the twee “A Kid for Two Farthings” and the starry, turgid “Trapeze” suddenly unrecognizable as the model of precision and controlled humanism that his best films embodied. But while hardly up to “The Third Man” or even “The Fallen Idol” snuff, ‘Havana’ at least partially brought him back to himself, giving him a new, fascinating location to explore, a terrifically ambivalent, hangdog performance from Alec Guinness as the vacuum cleaner salesman turned fabulist spy Wormold, and letting him slot right back into sync with the irony and black humor of Greene’s writing that seemed to chime with him so instinctively. Indeed it’s a tone that many other adaptations of Greene’s work have struggled with, and even here, with Greene himself adapting his own novel (and dialing up the comic aspects) it doesn’t quite hang together, but Reed still delivers a deeply enjoyable satire mocking the officious paranoia of the world’s secret services, and the British Secret Service in particular. With Noël Coward‘s umbrella-carrying mid-level buffoon threatening to do a Harry Lime and walk away with the whole picture despite limited screen time, and a fun, sleazy turn from Ernie Kovacs as the ruthless Cuban chief of police who falls for Wormold’s comely but spoiled daughter, the film is a little too lightweight to have its serious underlying barbs really land, but it’s still an immensely enjoyable and witty entertainment that showed again just how attuned Reed’s filmmaking style could be to Greene’s sardonic writing.