Carol Reed
Carol Reed
RANKED:
4. Night Train to Munich (1940)
Carol Reed's film "Night Train to Munich" was not only a viable commercial political thriller when it was released in 1940, it was also an incredibly timely one. Dealing with Britain's war with the Nazis, the film details a British secret service agent's attempt to rescue an inventor and his daughter from the clutches of the Gestapo. Many draw comparisons from this film to Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 mystery thriller "The Lady Vanishes," including two of the exact same characters played by the exact same actor. Whether or not you see the similarities, "Night Train to Munich" dug right into the heart of Britain's opposition to the Nazi regime, especially since the film came out only less than a month after Germany's areal assault on British skies.
3. The Fallen Idol (1948)
One of the many string of hits by Carol Reed during the post-war era in the United Kingdom was his 1948 film "The Fallen Idol." The film centers on a young boy who is confronted with the moral ambiguity surrounding the man he idolizes. After much secrecy, infidelity, and an unsolved murder case, the black-and-white lenses through which our young boy sees suddenly become blurred. Essentially a coming-of-age story, our child protagonist must come to more complex understandings of the people around him and in doing so, grows up a little. Perhaps things aren't as idealized as we would like to believe they are. A powerful notion, especially after the most black-and-white, good vs. evil-esque war that England just emerged from.
2. Odd Man Out (1947)
After the war, Carol Reed went on a string of films in the UK that would go on to be considered classics. The first of these string of films was 1947's "Odd Man Out." The film centers on an IRA member attempting to evade a police hunt as he trapes through the nighttime streets of Belfast while a bullet wound in his shoulder after an attempted robbery. What's interesting about "Odd Man Out" is how much the film changes its completions as it progresses. While it starts out a very realist thriller centering on an IRA member, it slowly morphs into a more expressionist piece about the nature of social responsibility, a philosophical rumination on the relationships between people, and our own relationship with death itself. "Odd Man Out" is now considered a hypnotic classic in British cinema and remains a testament to the prowess of Sir Carol Reed.
1. The Third Man (1949)
Taking the film noir movement that had become so popular in the United States, Carol Reed also borrowed the American actors Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten and created a very unique film noir for British audiences. The result, 1949's "The Third Man" follows an American pulp novelist arriving in Vienna to meet up with an old friend of his named Harry Lime. After discovering that Harry mysteriously died, the protagonist feels the need to investigate. Through various lies, confusions, and conspiracy, the protagonist is taken on a whirlwind only to attempt to play the gunslinging hero like in one of his pulp Western stories. However, in emerging on the other wide, it becomes clear that the confusion at the heart of the story has not dissipated. The confusion and disorientation only remains. Not only for the protagonist, but for the post-war European landscape as nothing but questions and uncertainty remain.
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