hyped garbage

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Tepid Cold War melodrama with Carol Reed making a half-hearted attempt to replicate The Third Man. The biggest problem is that none of the principals appear to be committed to the project so that the overall impression is that all the main personnel - writer, director, actors - owed the Production company a picture and were just discharging their obligation. Every time something of interest pops up - Mason and Neff arguing as Bloom walks in on them - it is immediately diffused so that little or no mystery/tension is left and we are looking at a damp squib. Usually the name of Harry Kurnitz on the credits is a guarantee of a decent script but not, alas, on this occasion. Disappointing all round.

James Mason is "The Man Between" in this 1953 Carol Reed film, shot on location in post-war Berlin. The film also stars Claire Bloom and Hildegarde Neff. Bloom plays Susanne, a young American woman who comes to Berlin to visit her brother Martin. Martin is stationed there and married to Bettina (Neff). Bettina is clearly unhappy about something, and Susanne soon realizes that her discomfiture has to do with a mysterious man, Iwo (Mason), described as an old friend. When Iwo offers to show her the sights, Susanne accepts, and, believing him to be having an affair with her sister-in-law, advises him to leave her alone. Iwo says he is trying to leave the area, and a friend of Martin's can help by getting him the required documents and introductions. When Susanne asks her brother to help Iwo by contacting the man, Bettina loses her temper, and the truth about Iwo and his true relationship to Bettina emerges.This is an odd, moody, dark film with some haunting images of the destroyed Berlin, and some beautiful shots, particularly the very last one in the film which stays in one's memory. The serenely beautiful Claire Bloom and the enigmatic Mason are magic together and make this a poignant love story, and very typical Reed - the innocent who has her eyes opened, the man tainted by sin going to meet his fate. The whole last half of the film focuses on only the two of them, and we sense their isolation, an odd couple in a changing world.The German supporting cast is excellent, particularly Neff, whose career in Hollywood was brief. She wrote a wonderful best-selling autobiography, The Gift Horse, in 1970, which leaves no doubt of her feelings about the place. She went on to star in Silk Stockings on Broadway and eventually returned to Germany.Quite a beautiful film, not up to "The Third Man," but still has the touch of the master.

A drama involving political intrigue, smuggling, and general malfeasance in the Eastern and Western Zones of Berlin. James Mason is the smooth operator who smuggles such commodities as meat from the West into the needy Stalinist East. Claire Bloom is the innocent who is visiting her brother Geoffrey Toone, a British army officer, and his wife, Hildegarde Knef, who was once married to Mason.In order to trap a Western operative, the villains extraordinarily extradite Claire Bloom and hole her up in an East Berlin dump. She is rescued by Mason for selfish reasons. He's trying to flee to the West himself, with a good deed on his record, so that when he surrenders to the police they'll go easier on him. Mason and Bloom are pursued in a suspenseful chase through the Eastern Zone. By this time Bloom has fallen for Mason, despite his warnings about his own character and deeds, and they wind up spending the night together. The next day they make a break for the border. Bloom makes it. In an act of self sacrifice, Mason does not.The first thing I thought of, after missing the credits, was that the writers and director had surely seen "The Third Man" and learned from it. The plot is similar. And the director tilts his camera at the same angles and at the same times as in the original, and there are close ups of suspicious faces observing events out of the sides of their eyes. It was therefore no surprise to find that Carol Reed had directed both films.The location shooting is just fine, as is the photography by Desmond Dickenson. Mid-winter in a starving and rubble-strewn East Berlin. Everything burdened with a heavy snow blanket except the streets that are glazed with ice. Brrr.It's a good movie. The characters are well written. We're on one side, rather than the other, but the principal character is properly ambiguous. A plot for grown ups. Mason looks the part but he's simply not very good at a German accent. He was an embarrassment in another film as Irwin Rommel. And his death struck me as melodramatic. Claire Bloom, in only her fourth movie, does splendidly as the naive but righteous English girl. She's beautiful too, in a classic way. Her smile lights up the screen and makes her piercing black eyes almost disappear for a moment. Hildegarde Knef is equally attractive and just as good an actress but in a very different way. Her appearance, as well as her performance, suggests a good deal of experience and knowingness.It's not "The Third Man" though. (So few films can clear THAT bar.) And Carol Reed entered a slow decline after this, for some reason, winding up with the abysmal "The Public Eye" in the early 1970s. Yet his talent shows through all the murky shadows on the screen and we find ourselves enjoying a taut and exciting story, well worth seeing.

This taut film noir when compared to Carol Reed's masterpieces of that genre, Odd Man Out and The Third Man, is a flawed gem, but still that - a gem.Filmed in Berlin just eight years after WWII ended, and eight years before the Wall went up, it stars James Mason and Claire Bloom as star-crossed lovers in a city still digging itself out of the rubble made by Allied bombs, and still taking refugees from the east of Europe. The story tells of Susanne Mallison, a young Englishwoman who has arrived in Berlin to visit her older brother Martin, an army physician in the British sector of the city, and his German wife Bettina. It is while Susanne and Bettina are spending a day in the eastern sector, that Bettina finds herself reluctantly introducing Susanne to an old friend, the suave and handsome Ivo Kern. Susanne doesn't like Ivo at first -the audience isn't supposed to either - and she immediately becomes suspicious that he and Bettina are having a clandestine affair. She is curious though about the man, but will she learn the truth about Ivo and his mysterious background? Meanwhile off the set of the film there was more going on behind the scenes between the two stars. From the book 'James Mason - A Personal Biography', by Mason's former sister-in-law and life long friend, Diana de Rosso: "I was to observe another side of his character, rarely disclosed, when he came to London to finish filming The Man Between. He was a frequent visitor to our London home and he began to bring with him increasingly, his ethereally lovely co-star Claire Bloom...He showed a marked interest in the young actress. There was a quality about her, a stillness and tranquillity which set her apart from most artists her age, yet she had a pointed wit and a fine intelligence, virtues which appealed to James - and it was quite apparent that he was in danger of losing his heart. In truth I believe his heart was lost...His attachment to Claire was purely romantic. They used to sit on the floor together in our house, hand in hand, plainly adoring each other..."But as with Ivo and Susanne, it was the same with James and Claire. Mason did not divorce his estranged wife Pamela Kellino, and de Rosso was surprised that he didn't, but she has some theories. When he finally did get his divorce a few years later, Claire had moved on to other things in her career and private life. Still, when they met again several years later, it was clear that Mason still was very fond of her and she likewise.When I first saw this film I questioned whether Mason's German accent was very good, but when I lent it to a pair of friends who are German, they said that he did a good job. As for the German supporting cast, it is the best, especially the lovely Hildegard Neff, and the hauntingly beautiful musical score catches the bleak feeling of the city during a cold winter. They are also reasons I list this as one of my favourite film noir productions.