Movie Death Match: "The Third Man" v. "Touch of Evil"

Our Noir-vember Death Match is a smackdown between two of my personal favorites, both monochromatic midcentury masterpieces featuring great heel turns from Orson Welles. In 1949’s The Third Man, written by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed, he was merely the actor who played Harry Lime. He rewrote and directed 1958’s Touch of Evil after star Charlton Heston asked Universal Pictures to invite Welles to assume these chief creative roles, after Welles had already been cast as crooked cop Hank Quinlan.

I’m especially delighted to welcome my pal Matt Gourley, representing The Third Man, to the Death Match cage-or-is-it-a-courtoom, for our third pod collaboration. I was on an episode of James Bonding with him, Matt Mira, and Mark McConville recorded at his home in 2017, and six years later he joined Glen Weldon and me to dissect the forgotten Patrick McGoohan-starring thriller Ice Station Zebra on A Degree Absolute! I’d not met Indiewire’s Anne Thompson, our Touch of Evil stan, prior to this recording, but she was a sharp and savvy delight. Check out the episode below.