Movies: Comparing Casablanca and The Third Man

I. Comparing Movies: The Third Man (TM) and
Casablanca (CB)

(TM) Setting: WWII
(CB) Setting WWII

(TM) Romance: Good Guy-Bad Guys-Woman in between
(CB) Romance: Noble Guy-Apparent Cynic-Woman lost in
between

(TM) The racket: Penicillin
(CB) The racket: Visas

(TM) The 'enforcer': Trevor Howard in a wonderful
turn as Maj. Calloway
(CB) The 'enforcer': Claude Rains as Capt. Louis
Renault

(TM) Photography: Brilliant evocation of post-war
Vienna
(CB) Photography: Morocco (or so you thought) - but
you sure got a sense of time and place

(TM) Music: Zither Music (haunting - this by itself
ranks in my top 5 film music of all time)
(CB) Music: "As time goes by", "knock on wood" - Play
it again Sam!

(TM) Dialogue: A movie of adults, by adults, for
adults - dialogue in this movie is crucial to the
story and character development (Courtesy Graham
Greene)
(CB) Dialogue: Every line worth hanging on to

(TM) Acting: Priceless entry of Orson Welles in the
last third of the movie.
(CB) Acting: How about when Ingrid Bergman walks into
Rick's café?

(TM) Ending: Matches Casablanca frame-for-frame for
the ending. Reminded me of Kamal's last scene in
Nizhal Nijamagirathu.
(CB) Ending: No need for me to state anything on this
one! The lives of three people indeed amounts to a
hill of beans!


This genre goes well with the book, "The Good German",
a 2003 Novel by the author of "Los Alamos"