How the shoot of The Third Man became a real-life MI6 operation
Carol Reed’s 1949 film of Graham Greene’s The Third Man remains one of the most acclaimed monuments of the British cinema – even though made with quite a lot of American money, and having two American stars: Orson Welles as the supposedly dead but then miraculously resurrected Harry Lime, and Joseph Cotten as his somewhat bewildered old pal Holly Martins. Shot on location in Vienna, it captures the turbulence of a former Nazi society rebuilding , literally and metaphorically, after defeat, and the criminal opportunities that it provided.
Although The Third Man had been a work of fiction – albeit an entirely contemporary one set in an occupied city – it emerges that a real-life drama was going on while it was being made in 1948-49. Karina Urbach, a German-born historian with an impressive sideline as a novelist, was researching a story partly about post-war Vienna, based on the MI6 officer Daphne Park when she uncovered some remarkable facts. She found that MI6 used the filming of The Third Man as a “cover operation” to allow its agents to work in the Soviet Zone in the Austrian capital. The deeper Urbach dug, the more she found. However, her discoveries remain largely unknown mainly because no British publisher has yet had the wit to translate her novel, Das Haus am Gordon Place , into English.
Most of the key people involved in making the film had some connection to the world of British intelligence. Greene had been an operative for the secret service in West Africa during the Second World War and knew all the rules and tricks of functioning as a spy. Reed had been an Army officer before joining the service’s film unit and then the Directorate of Army Psychiatry, which among many other things helped identify suitable candidates for military intelligence. The film’s producer, Alexander Korda, had provided rudimentary intelligence services to Robert Vansittart, who ran the Foreign Office in the 1930s, because Korda had a wide network of European connections (he was Hungarian by birth). Korda was also close to Churchill. He carried on supplying information once the Cold War began.
But the most significant person connected with the film was Elizabeth Montagu, elder sister of the third Baron Montagu of Beaulieu. She was an experienced intelligence officer, having served throughout the war as a liaison officer between the British and the Americans. When the war ended, she was hired by Korda – and when he agreed to make The Third Man he sent Greene on a reconnaissance trip to Vienna, where she was his guide to the city. Her work for MI6 continued while on Korda’s staff, and scouting for film locations and helping find material for the screenplay were a perfect cover for her work. She managed to charm Soviet officials and consequently ensured that she and Greene could get into their sector of Vienna, and that they could both get a close look at what the Russians were up to there.
One of the most famous scenes in the film is of Harry Lime and Holly Martins on the Ferris wheel in the Prater, the city’s great public park. It was in the Soviet zone, but thanks to Urbach’s investigations we now know that the location scouting and actual filming allowed the gathering of a huge amount of intelligence. This was far from a game: in 1948 there were genuine fears among the British and Americans that the Soviet Union would try to occupy the whole of Austria, and intelligence about their activities and possible intentions was crucial. It was one reason why Korda sent Greene on his “recce”, escorted by Montagu, incurring considerable expense for what at the time was considered by the impoverished British film industry to be an extravagant exercise, but it was as much in the country’s interests as in the film’s.
Dr Urbach also found that “odd people” would appear on the set, stay for a few days and then disappear. The film technicians recall a man unknown to them joining their number – unusual in a trade that was a very small world. He seemed skilled at his job, but soon vanished and none of them ever saw him again. Reed appeared under serious stress on the set, consuming vast amounts of Benzedrine to keep him awake; he stopped the moment he returned to England. In biographies of Greene, the Vienna sojourn is depicted as an epic drinking session involving him and Reed, who were great friends. But I hope someone will publish Dr Urbach’s novel in English, so that the wide audience this film has can learn that its making was about far more than an extended boys’ night out.
