By Nicholas Davies

Thrillers are a dime a dozen these days – the cinemas are jammed with them right now – but if you’re a fan of the genre, you really shouldn’t miss the opportunity to catch Carol Reed’s ‘The Third Man’ (1949) at DFI’s UK Cinema Showcase this Thursday and Friday, 28 and 29 March.

The film is a classic and brilliant example of the stylings of film noir, which is really what gives it its edgy, uncomfortable atmosphere. If you’re not familiar with the term ‘film noir’, have a look here, here, and here and you’ll soon get the idea. You’ll start to see noir’s influence all over the place – ‘Drive’ and ‘Gangster Squad’ are recent examples; ‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997) and ‘Chinatown’ (1974) are earlier echoes of the classic 40s originals, like ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944) and ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ (1946).

The director was at the height of his career – ‘Third Man’ took the Grand Prix at Cannes, the BAFTA for Best Film, and the BFI named it the best British film of the 20th century in 1999. The story is by Graham Greene, one of the best of all possible writers to capture the anxiety of the last century. And the performances are all top-notch – from some of the biggest names of the period (Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard and, of course, Orson Welles, himself one of the most important directors in the history of cinema).

Using the low-key lighting and disorienting camera angles that are hallmarks of film noir, the film makes the black-market atmosphere of post-WWII, pre-Cold War Vienna in all its shabby, corrupt anti-glory all the more unstable and threatening (Robert Krasker won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Black and White Cinematography). The story is all film noir as well, with its novelist-turned-investigator becoming embroiled in the goings-on of the criminal underworld.

Effectively, Reed’s film is something of a perfect storm, gathering together some of the best filmmaking talents of the time for a real cinematic tour-de-force. Put it on your list of Things Not To Be Missed This Weekend in Doha.