“MELANCHOLY NOIR”

By Raymond Benson

Sir Carol Reed has always been a stylish director, someone who could evoke a striking mood with atmospheric cinematography and lighting, setting, and the perfect compositions that placed his actors within the picturesque frames. Reed is mostly remembered for his masterpiece, The Third Man (1949), an earlier British noir called Odd Man Out (1947), and for his later Oscar-winning musical, Oliver! (1968). One of his more overlooked gems is The Man Between, another polished British noir from 1953 that obviously attempts to capitalize on what made The Third Man and Odd Man Out memorable.

The movie is a Cold War thriller set in early 50s Berlin, several years before the erection of the Wall. Like The Third Man, the story deals with wavering loyalties to the politics that govern a particular location. Here, the East-West conflict in Berlin is beginning to broil into a seriously tense situation. Nevertheless, Reed and his cinematographer, Desmond Dickinson, transform the intrigue into a gorgeously rendered, haunting treatise of melancholy that permeates the succession of expressionistic, high contrast black and white tableaux.

A young Claire Bloom stars as Susanne, an English tourist who has come to Berlin to visit her brother, Martin (Geoffrey Toone). Martin is married to Bettina (Hildegard Knef, credited as Hildegard Neff), who has a mysterious connection with former German lawyer Ivo (James Mason, displaying a somewhat awkward German accent, but it’s effective enough). Ivo seems to be in trouble, as a lot of men in trench coats or uniforms are looking for him. Even though the man is decidedly bad news, Susanne falls in love with Ivo. Without spoiling the revelations of the story, suffice it to say that Ivo is involved in nefarious arrangements with the East Germans, but at the same time yearns to be in the West. Unfortunately, Susanne gets caught up in the tangled web and finds herself stuck in the Eastern bloc; hence, a good portion of the film centers on the harrowing attempts to get her back to the West without the authorities closing in.

While The Man Between is beautiful to look at and well-acted, the plot is a bit muddled—we’re not really sure what Ivo is actually doing until late in the game, and even then it’s not very clear. There are also some believability issues regarding Susanne’s attraction to Ivo, but I suppose since he’s a young, handsome James Mason, it’s all good. It really doesn’t matter, for the moodiness and the melodrama carries one through the picture with grace and a good deal of suspense, even if we’re not entirely sure what’s going on.

Kino Lorber’s new 1920x1080p Blu-ray is indeed an exquisite presentation—the image is sharp and crystal clear. It comes with an audio commentary by film critic and author Simon Abrams. The supplements are impressive. Of special interest is the nearly 45-minute retrospective of Carol Reed’s career, featuring several talking heads, including John Boorman, and film clips. There’s also a long, wonderful audio interview with James Mason, who is a much funnier man than we’ve often been led to believe. A short video interview with Claire Bloom is also enlightening, and various trailers round off the package.

The Man Between is a good example of one of the more high-class, bigger-budget productions coming out of the U.K. in the early 1950s.

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