The Man Between ***½ (1953, James Mason, Claire Bloom, Hildegard Knef) – Classic Movie Review 10,950

‘Terror! Vice! Violence! He stopped at nothing!’

James Mason stars as the mystery man in the middle of Carol Reed’s atmospheric Fifties Cold War film noir espionage thriller/ crime drama The Man Between (1953), based on the novel Susanne in Berlin by Walter Ebert.

When Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom) comes to her sister-in-law Bettina (Hildegarde Neff)’s home in Berlin, she finds her deep in trouble connected with Bettina’s mysterious friend, wartime criminal Ivo Kern (Mason). He offers to show her round Berlin and they begin dating.

There are potentially as many excitements and insights here as in The Third Man, but this time Reed just hasn’t the same kind of high-quality script to work on and he is not helped by a cheap-looking studio production at Shepperton Studios, England. The copious, atmospheric location shooting in devastated Berlin, filmed in black and white by Desmond Dickinson, though is outstanding, giving the film some of its lasting value.

The acting by the three stars is good, but not special, and the film, while more than acceptable, just is not resonant like its illustrious predecessor.

Twenty years later James Mason offered this insight: ‘This film became very big on television in the US. In the cinema one demands of a thriller that the narrative thread be ever taut. The American televiewer makes no such demands since continuity is destined to be shattered by commercial interruption. Thus it often happens that what has been hitherto regarded as a failure in the cinemas will be a hit on the Late Late Show and vice versa.’

Writers: Harry Kurnitz (screenplay) and Eric Linklater (screenplay, uncredited), based on an original story by Walter Ebert.

Also in the cast are Geoffrey Toone, Ernst Schroeder, Dieter Krause, Aribert Wäscher, Ernst Schröder, Hilde Sessak, Karl John and Ljuba Welitsch, who plays and sings Salome (written by Richard Strauss).

The Man Between is directed by Carol Reed, runs 100 minutes, is made by London Film Productions and British Lion Film Corporation, is released by British Lion Film Corporation (1953) (UK) and United Artists (1953) (US), is written by Harry Kurnitz and Eric Linklater (uncredited), based on an original story by Walter Ebert, is shot in black and white by Desmond Dickinson, is produced by Carol Reed and Hugh Perceval (associate producer), is scored by John Addison and designed by Andrej Andrejew.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,950

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