"The Third Man knows that there is no such thing as a comprehensive outlook on the world and that there is more which is secret and indefinable in people (and places) than is open and intelligible.”
Many film critics regard this film noir as the greatest British film ever made, and the Third Man could be seen as a powerful metaphor for the Third Programme, which disappeared into BBC Radio 3, a bit like Orson Welles’ amoral Harry Lime, who may or may not be the Third Man, disappearing into the sewers of post-war Vienna!
YouTube - Third Man - The Cuckoo Clock
Next year, Radio 3 will be celebrating seventy years since the first broadcast of the Third Programme, but in a new age of austerity for the BBC, can it be as good as the original, let alone the Third Man?