A walking tour traces a classic film noir through a timeless setting

Opening shots of the 1949 classic film “The Third Man” show postwar Vienna at its bleakest, its piles of rubble a vivid backdrop for scenes of Cold War intrigue. In the voice-over, Joseph Cotten, as hack writer Holley Martins, contrasts the “old Vienna” he never knew--with “its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm”--with the dark, divided city he has come to know too well.

My husband, G. J., and I, admirers of the movie, decided to seek out some of its locales on a recent trip to Vienna. We have made a ritual of watching “The Third Man” before every trip to remind ourselves of what a complicated place Vienna was and still is. As the charming but sinister Mr. Popescu (played by Siegfried Breuer) smilingly suggests to Holley Martins: “Everybody ought to be careful in a city like this.”

When British film producer Alexander Korda decided to make a movie about Vienna, he did not want to depict the fabled imperial city as one of wine, whipped cream and Sacher tortes. Postwar Vienna, occupied by Allied Forces and just outside the Iron Curtain, had other, more seductive stories to tell.

Korda sent writer Graham Greene to Vienna in 1948 to find such a tale and, after two weeks quartered in the Hotel Sacher, he did. A young British officer told him about the black market drug trade and about the city’s vast underground network of sewers. Putting these elements together, Greene wrote a screenplay. It was called “The Third Man.”

“The Third Man” traces Holley Martins’ search for the truth behind the life and death of his old school chum, Harry Lime. Against the complicated backdrop of a fragile, splintered city, Martins struggles to disprove police allegations that Harry Lime was dealing highly dangerous, adulterated penicillin on the black market.

Directed by Carol Reed, the movie also starred Orson Welles as Lime; Trevor Howard as Lt. Calloway; Alida Valli as Lime’s lover Anna Schmidt; and a brilliant assemblage of Austrian and British character actors. Set against both a haunted city and a haunting score, the film won an Academy Award for Robert Krasker’s black-and-white cinematography in 1950.

We began at the Prater, the public amusement park established by Josef II in 1766, where one of Vienna’s famous landmarks, the giant Ferris wheel, dominates the landscape. On the advice of G. J.’s Viennese cousins, we went during the day, thus avoiding its rather seamy night scene populated by shady characters, no doubt including a few would-be Harry Limes.

By midmorning the park was already lively with families enjoying thrill rides and grilled bratwurst. But boarding one of the enclosed red cars of the giant wheel along with a local family and a couple of German tourists, I felt a shiver as I recalled one of the great dramatic moments of “The Third Man,” when Lime, pointing to the people on the ground, justifies his crimes to his friend Martins:

“Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving--forever? If I said you can have 20,000 pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.”

In a lazy 10 minutes, we made one revolution of the wheel and marveled at the views of the Danube River, the Vienna Woods and the city before us. We marveled, too, at the wheel’s intricate lacework of cable and wires. The original Ferris wheel was built in 1896 but was destroyed during a World War II bombing raid and reconstructed in 1947.

The following day, G. J. and I took a tram out to the Central Cemetery, Vienna’s main burial ground. Several scenes were filmed here, in Sections 69 and 70, along the long, wide streets that crisscross this sprawling cemetery of more than 1 million graves. The movie’s final scene takes place here, the camera following Anna Schmidt as she walks away from Lime’s funeral, past the waiting, hopeful Holley Martins.

By accident, as we wandered through the section of the cemetery reserved for noteworthy Austrians, we found the simple headstone of actor Paul Hoerbiger, whose memorable performance in the movie as the porter we have always admired.

Throughout our few days in Vienna, G. J. and I found ourselves quite unintentionally at many of the film’s backdrops. We passed by the Hotel Sacher and Cafe Mozart, walked through Hoher Markt and Am Hof squares, and up the stairs in front of Maria am Gestade church. We began to gain a better sense of how integral a part in the film the city plays. More than a backdrop, Vienna is a character in the drama.

On the day before we left, we joined a Friday afternoon walking tour devoted to the film. Friederike Mayr alternates leadership of the tour with her colleague, Brigitte Timmermann, whom she credits for having originated this themed walk. Speaking first in German, then in English, Mayr provided a fascinating mix of Vienna and movie lore, shading in the historical and cinematic backgrounds of “The Third Man.”

Equipped with the recommended small flashlights and sturdy shoes, we set off from our meeting point, the Friedensbrucke subway station, in the company of 38 others: an international mix of Germans, Italians, British, French, Australians and Americans. A few admitted they knew the film only by reputation.

We followed Mayr through the subway station, down an embankment to the edge of the Danube Canal, and then into an underpass leading to the Alsbach Canal, an underground stream that forms a part of the city’s sewer system.

The passageway to the cordoned-off Alsbach canal was wet and dark, and I was glad to have a flashlight. This glimpse of underground Vienna was merely a demonstration, however. The movie’s sewer scenes were shot elsewhere, Mayr said, including one site under Karlsplatz (the park-like square facing St. Charles Cathedral), to which access is now limited.

Those scenes were difficult to shoot, Mayr said, in part because Welles, who only reluctantly agreed to do the part, objected to the smell . . . and to the rats. Reed had the sewer walls perfumed and used a stand-in when possible.

As we began to exit, we heard the unmistakable sounds of a zither and the familiar strains of the movie’s signature tune, known as “The Harry Lime” theme or “The Third Man” theme. Playing in the dim light was musician Helmut Burtscha, who also treated us to one of the film’s secondary tunes, “The Cafe Mozart” theme.

During the filming, Reed went to a Heurige, a traditional wine tavern, where he heard the distinctive--and typically Viennese--zither music for the first time and decided to use it in the score. No one anticipated how great a contribution the music would make.

From the Friedensbrucke station, we took a five-minute subway ride to Schottentor station, just inside the Ringstrasse, the great boulevard that encircles Vienna’s historic center. We walked to Molker-Bastei, a street where a remnant of medieval fortifications still stands. Reed chose this spot for some exterior shots of Anna Schmidt’s apartment house and neighborhood, coincidentally selecting a lovely and quiet little corner of the city where Beethoven once resided (the Pasqualatihaus at No. 51).

In an adjoining lane, at No. 8 Schreyvogelgasse, Mayr pointed out the doorway that framed a climactic moment in “The Third Man.” Holley Martins, a bit drunk and shouting in the quiet streets, sees Lime, presumed dead and buried, standing in the doorway, Anna’s cat at his feet and the light from an apartment suddenly exposing his face.

This first appearance of Lime relatively late in the film is followed by his equally sudden disappearance. Mayr recalled the sequence to illustrate how various city settings were combined, sometimes to the confusion of the movie’s fans trying to retrace the characters’ footsteps.

Lime, for example, runs down the wet cobblestones of the streets of Anna’s neighborhood (hosed down by a cooperative city fire brigade at Reed’s request), only to disappear into a huge square that is empty except for a kiosk. The square, Am Hof, is actually many blocks away. And the kiosk, with its staircase leading down to the sewers, was actually located at Karlsplatz.

In our walk from the Molker Bastei to Am Hof, Mayr took us on a short detour to glimpse the remains of Vienna’s once vast underground network of connected storage cellars. After a brief consultation with the proprietor, she led us into a traditional clothing shop, past its displays of pretty dirndls and then downstairs through a long and progressively narrower and dimmer series of tiny storerooms. We could see, with our flashlights, where the route abruptly ends in a plastered-over doorway. It was sealed, Mayr said, because a shop girl once got lost down below.

*

Back on the street, we proceeded to the lovely Am Hof square, lined by Baroque buildings, where Mayr talked about the film’s realistic portrayal of the political division of the city and the resulting bureaucratic chaos. In a subplot, Lime’s lover, Anna Schmidt, is caught with a forged passport. As a Czech national, she is threatened with deportation to the Russian sector or out of Austria altogether. Mayr showed us copies of a set of identity papers from the period. An astonishing 14 separate seals or stamps were required for proper documentation. One missing stamp, she said, could result in imprisonment and possibly deportation.

Our next stop was the Josefplatz, where the body of Harry Lime was laid at the base of the equestrian statue of Emperor Josef II. As part of the Hofburg complex, the small plaza lies in the heart of Imperial Vienna, and contains the Austrian National Library, the Spanish Riding School and the 18th century Palais Pallavicini, which is instantly recognizable by the classical caryatids framing its doorway. This stately building stood in as Lime’s residence and home to the elderly porter.

*

One of G. J.’s favorite moments in the movie is when the child, Little Hansl, part of the gathering crowd in front of the Pallavicini Palace, points to Holley Martins as a suspect in the porter’s murder. Face unnaturally pale, eyes large, features nearly expressionless, Hansl repeats with the singsong cadence of a nursery rhyme, his simple accusation, “Papa, der war’s” (“Papa, he was the one”).

Mayr passed around a still of the 6-year-old Herbert Halbik, who played the part so unforgettably. The son of a stagehand, he was reportedly so spoiled by the doting cast and crew during the filming that his parents refused to let him make any more films.

At the end of our two-hour walk, the participants had dwindled to about a dozen. Mayr left us in the Albertinaplatz, just up the street from the Josefplatz and, appropriately, facing the Cafe Mozart. One of the city’s traditional coffeehouses, the Mozart is mentioned in the film as the meeting place of Holley Martins and the sleazy Baron Kurtz, played with creepy charm by Ernest Deutsch. Bidding farewell to our excellent guide, G. J. and I took a table, and looked around for any patron who might be carrying a copy of Holley Martins’ “The Lone Rider of Santa Fe” or “The Oklahoma Kid.” Seeing none, we ordered some crisp white wine and wondered if it was still wise to “go careful in a city like this.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Intrigue in Vienna

Getting there: Delta, British Airways, KLM, Swissair, Lufthansa, United and Air France fly from LAX to Vienna, with one change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $955.

Where to stay: Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth, Weihburggasse 3. Double rooms begin at about $152, including breakfast; from the United States telephone 011-43-1-515260, fax 011-43-1-515267.

Hotel Sacher, Philharmonikerstrasse 4. Double rooms begin at about $319; tel. 011-43-1-51456.

Where to eat: The following serve traditional Viennese cuisine, as well as light meals and snacks:

Cafe Mozart, Albertinaplatz 2; tel. 011-43-1-5130881.

Cafe Griensteidl, Michaelerplatz 2; tel. 011-43-1-5352692.

Gasthof Renner, Nussdorferplatz 4; tel. 011-43-1-371277.

Walking tour: The “Vienna in the Footsteps of the Third Man” tour is offered weekly, year-round, by Brigitte Timmermann (tel. 011-43-1-774-89-01; fax 011-43-1-774-89-33) or Friederike Mayr (tel./fax 011-43-1-667-18-91). Price: adults, about $10; children under 18, about $5. (This price does not include subway fare.) Children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.

For more information: Austrian National Tourist Office, P.O. Box 491938, Los Angeles, CA 90049; tel. (310) 478-8306.