What is it about "The Third Man" that has captivated audiences for nearly three-quarters of a century? And more intriguingly, what drives fans and curious tourists to wander the streets and sewers of Vienna in search of locations from Carol Reed's noir masterpiece?
The film, released in 1949 and starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, tells the story of an American writer who comes to post-war Vienna to visit an old friend, only to discover that his friend is dead. The mystery deepens when he learns that there may be a third man involved in his friend's death—a man that witnesses claim to have seen but whose identity remains elusive.
The Vienna that Reed captured on film was a city divided—occupied by the four Allied powers following World War II. The rubble of war still lay scattered across the landscape. The city's famous Stephansdom cathedral stood damaged. The atmosphere was one of desperation, corruption, and intrigue.
In the decades since the film's release, most of Vienna has been rebuilt. The bombed-out buildings have been reconstructed. The streets are clean and orderly. Yet fans of "The Third Man" come to Vienna determined to see the locations where the film was shot, to experience the Vienna that Reed captured, even though that Vienna no longer physically exists.
I joined such a tour, led by a Vienna-based film enthusiast who knew the city's film history intimately. Our first stop was the famous Riesenrad, the giant Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park. It's the scene of one of the film's most iconic moments—when Welles's character, the mysterious Harry Lime, says the famous line: "In Italy, for thirty 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 five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
The Riesenrad still operates today, and from its heights, one can see much of Vienna. But the Vienna below is transformed, modern, prosperous. The war-torn Vienna of 1949 is gone.
We walked the streets where Cotten's character searches for his friend, streets that still exist but now lined with shops and cafes rather than damaged buildings. We passed the location of the coffee house where a crucial scene takes place. We stood outside the apartment building where several key moments occur.
Then our guide took us to perhaps the most famous location of all: the Vienna sewers. In the film, there's a dramatic climax involving a chase through the underground sewers—a sequence that has become legendary among film enthusiasts. Our guide explained that parts of the sewers used in the film are no longer accessible to tourists, but we were able to descend into sections that give a sense of the claustrophobic, maze-like passages that feature in the film.
In those subterranean tunnels, lit by our flashlights, I found myself imagining the film's dramatic ending. The sound of water echoing through the passages, the narrow brick walls, the sense of being beneath the city—it all evoked the atmosphere of the film, even though the Vienna above had transformed beyond recognition.
As our tour concluded and we emerged back into the sunlit streets of modern Vienna, I reflected on what draws people like us to retrace the steps of "The Third Man." Part of it, certainly, is admiration for the film itself—its storytelling, cinematography, and cultural significance. But there's something deeper at work too.
By visiting these locations, we are attempting to access a historical moment that has otherwise been erased by time and progress. We are trying to see Vienna as it was—damaged, divided, and mysterious. We are searching, in some sense, for the third man ourselves—not a criminal figure, but a ghostly reminder of the past.
The irony, of course, is that "The Third Man" captures a fleeting moment in Vienna's history, a moment that no longer exists. The city has moved forward, healed its wounds, rebuilt itself. Yet through the medium of film, that moment has been preserved, and people continue to seek it out, finding in those dark streets and sewers a connection to history, to cinema, and to a Vienna that lives only in our imaginations and in the grainy black-and-white images on the screen.