Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Paul Eizik (A) on July 18, 2015 at 11:10:11

In Reply to: RE: Has anyone seen the 4k restoration of 'The Third Man'? posted by 13th Duke of Wymbourne on July 14, 2015 at 22:01:21

I saw it when it opened here in Chicago and it looked great! Very sharp and natural looking. A lot of details become noticeable like Joseph Cotton's herringbone overcoat, and a lot of the odd bricabrack in the Vienna apartments. There's this giant thing in Harry Lime's girlfriend's apartment that could be a dresser, but it looks to be six feet tall and looks like a giant tea pot! This is not to say that the 4K makes the details distracting, there's always a lot going in the action. The dialog was a bit hard to follow, but I remember it always being that way even on TV, with people talking over each other in typical Welle's fashion. Thankfully they did'nt process the hell out of it to "improve" it. A lot of the dialogue is in German with no subtitles, as Cotton's character does'nt understand it anyway, but there are clues you can pick up if you had German in college. There's a sign in the ferris wheel car behind Cotton that reads "Frei Ausprechen Ist Verboten", literally "freely speaking out is forbidden". Was this actually in the car or did Welles add it? If you're a Welles fan it's definitely worth seeing.

Paul