The Cuckoo Clock

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly." Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man.

While The Third Man was written by Graham Greene (not of Bonanza fame), the previous quote was actually written and inserted by Welles. After an obligatory viewing of Casablanca and now seeing what many others consider one of the great film noirs, The Third Man beats that hands down. Better cinematography, better soundtrack (you've gotta love the zither), better script, better acting, and it is all brought together by Carol Reed. What is even better for me, after seeing another noir type by Hitchcock with Jimmy Stewart--The Man Who Knew Too Much, is that Stewart was wanted for the role of Holly Martins, but lost out to the producer's contract with Joseph Cotten. I really can't see Stewart in that role at all, and his drawl would have made it all the worse.

Erasmo Alindogan