The Man Between

This taut film noir when compared to Carol Reed's masterpieces of that genre, Odd Man Out and The Third Man, is a flawed gem, but still that - a gem.

Filmed in Berlin just eight years after WWII ended, and eight years before the Wall went up, it stars James Mason and Claire Bloom as star-crossed lovers in a city still digging itself out of the rubble made by Allied bombs, and still taking refugees from the east of Europe. The story tells of Susanne Mallison, a young Englishwoman who has arrived in Berlin to visit her older brother Martin, an army physician in the British sector of the city, and his German wife Bettina. It is while Susanne and Bettina are spending a day in the eastern sector, that Bettina finds herself reluctantly introducing Susanne to an old friend, the suave and handsome Ivo Kern. Susanne doesn't like Ivo at first -the audience isn't supposed to either - and she immediately becomes suspicious that he and Bettina are having a clandestine affair. She is curious though about the man, but will she learn the truth about Ivo and his mysterious background?

Meanwhile off the set of the film there was more going on behind the scenes between the two stars. From the book 'James Mason - A Personal Biography', by Mason's former sister-in-law and life long friend, Diana de Rosso: "I was to observe another side of his character, rarely disclosed, when he came to London to finish filming The Man Between. He was a frequent visitor to our London home and he began to bring with him increasingly, his ethereally lovely co-star Claire Bloom...He showed a marked interest in the young actress. There was a quality about her, a stillness and tranquillity which set her apart from most artists her age, yet she had a pointed wit and a fine intelligence, virtues which appealed to James - and it was quite apparent that he was in danger of losing his heart. In truth I believe his heart was lost...His attachment to Claire was purely romantic. They used to sit on the floor together in our house, hand in hand, plainly adoring each other..."

But as with Ivo and Susanne, it was the same with James and Claire. Mason did not divorce his estranged wife Pamela Kellino, and de Rosso was surprised that he didn't, but she has some theories. When he finally did get his divorce a few years later, Claire had moved on to other things in her career and private life. Still, when they met again several years later, it was clear that Mason still was very fond of her and she likewise.

When I first saw this film I questioned whether Mason's German accent was very good, but when I lent it to a pair of friends who are German, they said that he did a good job. As for the German supporting cast, it is the best, especially the lovely Hildegard Neff, and the hauntingly beautiful musical score catches the bleak feeling of the city during a cold winter. They are also reasons I list this as one of my favourite film noir productions.

In the Post-World War II, the British Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom) travels to Berlin to visit her older brother Martin Mallison (Geoffrey Toone), a military that has married the German Bettina Mallison (Hildegarde Neff). The naive Susanne snoops on Bettina and suspects that she is hiding a secret from her brother.

When Susanne meets Bettina with her friend Ivo Kern (James Mason), he offers to show Berlin to her and they date. But Ivo meets the strange Halendar (Aribert Waescher) from the East Germany and Susanne takes a cab and return to her home alone. Then she dates Ivo again and he meets Olaf Kastner (Ernst Schroeder), who is a friend of Martin and Bettina. But soon Susanne, who has fallen in love with Ivo, learns that he was a former attorney married to Bettina in East Germany but with a criminal past during the war. Now he is blackmailed by Halendar to kidnap Kastner and bring him back to the other side of the border. The plan fails and Halender asks his men to abduct Bettina to get Kastner. However, Susanne is kidnapped by mistake and is imprisoned in the basement of a house in East Berlin. Now Ivo plots a plan to rescue Susanne from Halender and help her to cross the border. Will they succeed in their intent?

"The Man Between" is another wonderful classic by Carol Reed with suspense and romance in the post-war Berlin totally destroyed, in the same environment of Rossellini's "Germania Anno Zero" or Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair". James Mason has another top-notch performance in the role of Ivo Kern, a cynical man that changes his behavior when he meets the naive and charming character performed by Claire Bloom. Their chemistry is fantastic and Hildegarde Neff is a very beautiful woman. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Outro Homem" ("The Other Man")

Claire Bloom has just arrived in post-war Berlin to vacation with her brother who is in the British Army and his new German wife (played by Hildegard Knef). Knef shows Bloom all about Berlin--both the Allied and the Russian sectors. In the east, the meet James Mason--a mysterious man who soon begins dating Bloom. However, there's obviously much more to the man than this and he and Knef share some secret. Later, through a strange series of events, Bloom is accidentally kidnapped and it's up to dashing Mason to help her sneak back to West Berlin--all the while pursued with Communists bent on their capture.

The film has a look very similar to director Reed's more famous preceding film, THE THIRD MAN--which was shot in post-war Vienna. However, the camera work in THE THIRD MAN was more daring and novel and the Berlin took far worse damage during the war--and the sheer volume of rubble in 1953 is still very significant and adds to the atmosphere.

Overall, while not a great spy film, it is very good and keeps your interest. I would say, overall, that the second half is a bit more exciting than the first. I especially liked the ending, though some might have preferred something a bit more upbeat.

By the way, James Mason seemed to do a fairly good job with speaking German. I could tell he wasn't exactly a native speaker, but he was pretty adept.

In 1947,James Mason worked with Carol REED,in "Odd man out" (in Belfast).This work was influenced by Marcel Carné's "realisme poétique" and cast Mason as a fugitive.Both "odd man out" and "the man between " have similar endings,except for the female part.

Berlin atmosphere (like Vienna in 'the third man') is well rendering,with the claustrophobia you used to feel during the Wall days. There are plotholes,but the cast easily makes up for that.The couple Mason /Bloom is very endearing:Mason 's character is a man whose ideals have been betrayed and his love for the beautiful English woman he tries to save is touching .Actually ,at the beginning,Mason was not friendly,he was even disturbing,but his moral stature ceaselessly grows towards the end.The two stars get good support from German thespian Hildegarde Kneff,whom we miss in the second part.

This movie might have influenced two sixties work:"the spy who came in from the cold"(Martin Ritt,1965) which featured Claire Bloom again,and "torn curtain" (1966),one of Hitchcock's minor movies in which we find a theater again!FF Coppola in "godfather III" ,like Carol Reed,took advantage of this by using opera music to enhance particular scenes.

Although inferior to 'the third man" (neither Welles nor Karas) "odd man out' or even "fallen idol" (1948),"the man between " deserves to be seen.

I enjoyed this, it is not great, nor very serious, which I like. I'm a bit adverse to serious spy drama, where I have to take all the political shenanigans too seriously, so this was fine for me, being more about the people involved and showing the city. I don't ever recall seeing such pictures of the devastation of Berlin or those simple border controls, many years before the wall. So, here we have Claire Bloom in one of the best performances I have seen from her, the possibly even lovelier but more one note turn from Hildegarde Neff and the more or less ever faithful James Mason. I was a bit concerned about his accent at first but soon got used to it and now understand that it is considered fine in Germany, so thats OK. The tale is fairly simple and predictable but the performances entrance and those streets with and without snow, a revelation. The cinematography and sharp direction make for a visual treat, especially those street scenes, the rooftops and stairwells and a decent level of suspense towards the end.