THE MAN BETWEEN

In 1949 Carol Reed directed 'The Third Man, set in post-World War 2 Vienna, one of the great British films of the twentieth century.  A few years later he directed this film which seems to be covering similar ground except that we're in early '50s Berlin.

The film begins with a British woman, Suzanne (played by Claire Bloom) arriving in West Berlin to visit her brother Martin (a British army doctor) and his German wife Bettina.

It soon becomes obvious to Suzanne that Bettina is anxious and distracted, although Martin being busy (and British) is oblivious.

The Berlin Wall is still a thing of the future, so moving between West and East Berlin is relatively simple.  Bettina takes Suzanne sightseeing in East Berlin (well, why wouldn't you?) and there they come across 'an old friend' of Bettina's, Ivo (played by James Mason).  Suzanne is attracted to charming Ivo even though a sinister character, Halendar, is always lurking in the background.

It seems that Halendar is someone senior in East Germany's police or intelligence services and that Ivo is reluctantly working for him. 

The other main character is Kastner, who smuggles people and documents out of East Berlin and who therefore is someone Halendar would like to get his hands on.

It would be unreasonable to expect another ‘The Third Man’ but by the halfway point this film was turning out to be a big disappointment.

Claire Bloom’s acting style wasn't doing much for me, James Mason’s German accent wasn’t doing him any favours, and I couldn’t get at all interested in either Martin or Bettina.

But the main problem was that I was struggling to understand or care about the plot machinations surrounding Kastner.

Fortunately the film picks up considerably from when Suzanne is accidentally kidnapped by  Halendar's men (they were after Bettina, no idea why).

Now we have a dramatic scenario I could understand. Suzanne, being British, is in no great danger but Ivo is keen to be the one to get her back to West Berlin as a means of starting a new life there, whilst Halendar sees an opportunity to use her as bait to catch Kastner with.

So the film develops into a cat-and-mouse chase in which Ivo and Suzanne are trying to evade the East German police under Halendar's direction and get back to West Berlin.  This is happening at night using real Berlin locations, mainly ruins, and it's very atmospheric and tense.

At one point Ivo and Suzanne have to take refuge for the rest of the night in an apartment, and it's heavily implied that they sleep together.  

The film ends with a passably dramatic conclusion in which Ivo dies, agonisingly short of getting across a checkpoint.  This is not surprising given that he is a morally flawed character, and that James Mason often played characters who die - at least nine times by my reckoning, not including 'Pandora and the Flying Dutchman' in which he plays a ghost.

The film is competently directed by Reed and despite my reservations about Bloom the actors do their best, but unfortunately they are saddled with both a convoluted and dull plot and with dialogue which is never able to breathe much life into the characters, especially Ivo and Suzanne.  

RATING: x Curb Your Enthusiasm