Tepid Cold War melodrama with Carol Reed making a half-hearted attempt to replicate The Third Man. The biggest problem is that none of the principals appear to be committed to the project so that the overall impression is that all the main personnel - writer, director, actors - owed the Production company a picture and were just discharging their obligation. Every time something of interest pops up - Mason and Neff arguing as Bloom walks in on them - it is immediately diffused so that little or no mystery/tension is left and we are looking at a damp squib. Usually the name of Harry Kurnitz on the credits is a guarantee of a decent script but not, alas, on this occasion. Disappointing all round.

This is sometimes compared to THE THIRD MAN or ODD MAN OUT, but it reminded me of Ophuls' THE RECKLESS MOMENT, because Mason plays almost exactly the same character: a guy with a seedy past who gets mixed up with the heroine for criminal reasons but who sort of falls in love with her, shows his honorable colors, and winds up saving her at the expense of his life. And Mason played it almost exactly the same way (except for the accent). In the four years between 1949 (THE THIRD MAN) and 1953, the whole world changed. In 1949, the Russians giving Valli a hard time about her passport seemed just a part of all the horrors and discomforts of the immediate postwar experience. Here, the Cold War is full blown, a permanent condition, and it overpowers the film. There's nothing here that remotely matches Trevor Howard's deep, world-weary, mordant cynicism, or the maturity of Valli's character, brought about by living in the complex and appalling world of Europe at the end of WW II. Much of this film is flatly photographed, and the spy stuff that makes up the plot seems shallow and contrived, not remotely in the same league as Graham Greene's THIRD MAN screenplay. The Bloom character is a bit too naive, and the characters of Knef, her husband and the spy fighter are stick figures. Though it's entertaining enough in a minor way, it can only be described as a disappointment.

Some purists would insist that film noir is a uniquely American genre, but in my view the term is equally appropriate to describe a number of British crime and espionage dramas, and indeed some continental European ones, such as Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques". Among the leading British directors who made what can be regarded as films noirs were Robert Hamer, director of "It Always Rains on Sunday" and "The Long Memory", and Carol Reed, whose work in the genre included "Odd Man Out", "The Third Man" and "The Man Between". It is noteworthy that all three of those films contain the word "man" in the title, because noir tended to be a male-dominated genre. There were occasional exceptions, such as "Double Indemnity", in which a female character takes on equal prominence with the male lead, but the general pattern is for a single male character to be at the centre of the film, with the female ones (and subsidiary male ones) defined in terms of their relationship to him. I think that this pattern holds good in "The Man Between", although Claire Bloom's character Suzanne Mallison may have more screen time, it is Ivo Kern, the "man between" himself, who is the real focus of the story.Like "The Third Man", the action takes place in a post-war European capital, in this case Berlin rather than Vienna. (During the Cold War Berlin, the "divided city", was to become a standard setting for any thriller with an espionage theme; "The Man Between" reminded me of another great British noir with an East Berlin setting, "The Spy who Came in from the Cold"; Bloom also appeared in that film). Suzanne files into the city from London to visit her older brother Martin, a doctor with the British Army Medical Corps, and his German wife Bettina. She meets Kern, a rather mysterious acquaintance of Bettina, who now appears to be working for the East German authorities. Despite Bettina's warning that Kern is not to be trusted, the naïve young Suzanne finds herself becoming attracted to him, and allows herself to be caught up in his dubious activities; as a result she is kidnapped and smuggled into East Berlin, leading to a tense finale in which she and Kern have to escape back to the West. (In the early fifties, before the building of the Berlin Wall, the East/West frontier was rather more porous than it was to become in the sixties and seventies, but crossing it was still difficult for anyone who had aroused suspicion or fallen foul of the authorities). A common noir characteristic was an air of moral doubt and uncertainty, and this is certainly present in "The Man Between". Politically, the distinctions are clear-cut; East Germany is an oppressive, Big Brother- style police state, dominated by ubiquitous huge portraits of Stalin and Ulbricht, and those Germans who oppose the Communist system are shown in a heroic light, such as Olaf Kestner, a West Berliner who helps refugees escape from the East. (Kern makes use of Suzanne in a failed attempt to arrest Kestner). The moral ambiguity comes in the portrayal of Kern himself, who is not simply shown as a villain. Kern was formerly an idealistic young lawyer who wished to defend the innocent and the 'rights of man'. His idealism, however, was shattered by the rise of Nazism and by his witnessing, and even being forced to participate in, Nazi atrocities. His faith in human nature gone, he turned to crime and became an associate of the East German secret service, although he has no belief in Communist ideology. He is, however, still capable of remorse, both for his past and for his present actions, and wishes to return to the West, where he hopes to atone for his criminal past. He is a complex, tormented figure, and James Mason here gives one of his finest performances, bringing out the various sides of Kern's nature. Bloom, in only her second film after "Limelight", looks radiant as Suzanne, and Hildegard Knef is good as Bettina, a woman who may also have guilty secrets in her past. Knef was herself German, as indeed were all those actors playing German characters, with the exception of Mason. (This was the second film in 1953 in which Mason played a German; the first had been "The Desert Rats" in which he played General Rommel). American noirs were often marked by dramatic black-and-white photography, and "The Man Between" follows this tradition with some striking shots of the snow-covered, war-ruined city. I would not rate this film quite as highly as "The Third Man", one of the greatest British films of the immediate post-war period, but it is certainly a distinguished effort. More than a mere thriller, it also asks some pertinent questions about human nature and gives us a memorable psychological portrait of a man haunted by guilt. 8/10A goof. Kern declares his belief in trial by jury, implying that it had been abolished by the Nazis. In fact, jury trial had been a feature of the legal system of Wilhelmine Germany but was abolished under the Weimar Republic in 1924, nearly a decade before the Nazis came to power, and has never been restored by any German government since, except for a brief period in Bavaria. It is a common Anglo-Saxon view that jury trial is an essential feature of democracy, but this opinion is not always shared by Continental Europeans.

In the wake of the international acclaim for The Third Man, Carol Reed decided to try and repeat with another story about international intrigue with The Man Between. Though not as good as The Third Man, The Man Between can stand on its own merits quite nicely.Taking the place of occupied Vienna is occupied Berlin. The story itself is a more formal cold war espionage story whereas in The Third Man it was about the black market which knows no politics. The innocent who churns thing up is Claire Bloom who is also in Berlin to visit her brother Geoffrey Toone, a medical doctor on assignment in the Allied occupied west sector in the British Zone. Toone has a new wife that Bloom's never met in the person of Hildegarde Knef.And Knef's got a mysterious new friend in James Mason, someone who has known Knef from before the war. Of course we later find out just how well he knew her as the film progresses.Aspects of two of James Mason's previous successful roles come into play and blend quite nicely for him in The Man Between. He starts out as an international man of mystery (no Austin Powers cracks please) as he is in 5 Fingers a rather ruthless individual operating in the netherworld between the west and east. Later on he reveals a lot more of himself to Bloom and by the end of the film you're thinking he reminds you of his luckless Irish revolutionary in Odd Man Out. The transition is accomplished smoothly under Carol Reed's direction.The rest of the cast is mostly made up of German players who were active in the cinema during the Nazi days. What their politics were who of us could tell unless we'd made a serious study of the subject. I've often wondered myself what rated the blacklisting an Emil Jannings got as opposed to a lot of others who did appear in Nazi propaganda films. Look at the cast credits of both Ernst Schroeder who plays a western sympathizing agent and Aribert Wascher who's a gangster operating in the Eastern Zone for the Russians. Look at their credits, both appeared in propaganda films. Both also give good performances in The Man Between.Even the occupied Eastern Zone has been considerably built up since the reunification of Germany. The Man Between is a fine Cold War drama and it gives one a chance to look at the devastation of Berlin post World War II which hopefully will never happen again.