Trevor Nunn David Benedict Christopher Hampton city Vienna film show song actor information Music man Trevor Nunn David Benedict Christopher Hampton city Vienna

‘The Third Man’ Review: Theatrical Hitmakers Can’t Make This Misbegotten Thriller Sing

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variety.com

David Benedict “What was I thinking when I made this deal?” So sings Holly Martins (Sam Underwood) towards the end of the new musical adaptation of “The Third Man.” Indeed.

As it turns out, the mystery at the heart of the show is not the expected “Whatever happened to Harry Lime?” – the man of the title – but what possessed a creative team as distinguished as director Trevor Nunn and bookwriter Christopher Hampton to imagine that what Carol Reed’s still-astonishing classic film needed was to be taken offscreen and planted onstage with added songs.

The dismaying production provides no answer. The opening is ominous in completely the wrong way. Yes, we’re still in Vienna in 1947 but it feels like a failure to resort to a voice-over to explain necessary information about how, in the wake of the war, the city has been divided up into sectors under the control of warring nations.

The storytelling, it’s clear, is going to be bald. Plotwise, almost nothing has changed. Pulp Westerns writer Martins arrives penniless in the city only to discover that his old friend Harry Lime (Simon Bailey) has died, oddly unconvincingly, in a car accident while crossing the road.

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