Cafe du Cinema Society Discusses Carol Reed's The Third Man

Welcome to our second Cafe du Cinema discussion group. Each month, we're selecting a film that's showing on TCM, giving everyone about a week to watch it, and then sharing our views on the movie in this forum. This month, we picked The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, which TCM broadcast last Wednesday, 21 October. I'm going to omit a plot synopsis because I assume all discussion participants have seen the movie. My goal is just to get the discussion started.

Rather than lead off the discussion with my views of the film (which might surprise you), I wanted to kick it off with this quote from Danny Peary in his book Guide for the Film Fanatic: "Reed conveys a world out of order, where good men do evil deeds, where the British and the Russians work side by side, where betrayal is more moral than loyalty (which I believe the film's major theme)."

Do you agree with Peary on the film's major theme? What was your assessment of The Third Man?