The Fallen Idol is the third film of British filmmaker Carol Reed's that I've seen. Prior to that I've watched the dreadful Oscar-winning musical Oliver!, the solid Charlton Heston biopic of Michelangelo, The Agony And The Ecstasy, and now this. Yes, I have also watched The Third Man, the 1949 film attributed to Reed, but have always hedged upon taking the Warren Commission-like stance that it was Reed's film alone, and not an Orson Welles film merely bearded by Reed. Well, after watching The Fallen Idol, the 1948 film that directly preceded The Third Man, I can tell you that I have no doubts that the bulk of The Third Man was a Welles project that used the functional journeyman studio director Reed as a studio front against the American blacklist.
This is not because The Fallen Idol is such a bad film- it's merely mediocre, even if it is based upon a Graham Greene work (as is The Third Man)- The Basement Room, but that there are only a few techniques in the film which augur the grandiosity of their usage in the later film- which was so Wellesian, that to contemplate that Reed soared to greatness out of mediocrity, for the single film he collaborated upon with Welles, then resumed a mediocre career, when the more Occam's Razor answer is that it was Welles who guided the vision of The Third Man, is to simply not recognize verities of the way art is created and the way artists work and mature.
As example, the two later Reed films I mention differ from The Third Man in that they are in color, in different genres, and made many years later, so that one could argue that Reed may have simply 'lost his touch.' But, given that The Fallen Idol was made a year earlier, is in black and white, and based upon a work by the same writer, the comparisons between the two films is apt, although the difference in quality is stark. But, why would Reed agree to such a thing? Well, he wanted to break into the American market, where this film did not do as well as other films by Britons as Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean, he shared political sympathies with and an artistic admiration of Welles. Plus, he got locked into a career track that led to greater financial success and recognition even as the requia for his solid artistic talents diminished in need. If you were a man who recognized his limits, and had a chance to help an idol whose techniques you aped, in exchange for personal success, would you refuse? Or would you do so, and deny the obvious to your grave?
Yet, especially in recent years, there seems to have been a critical movement afoot to try and argue that this mediocre film is somehow on par with The Third Man, and since it is so manifestly inferior, it begs a reasoning of the motives. The one which makes the most sense is that some critics want to argue that Reed was some visionary auteur, and that The Third Man was not such a great sore thumb in an otherwise workaday filmic resume. In short, the argument is clearly meant to bolster the claim that Reed was the force behind both films, rather than just the first one, and a beard for the second. Yet, The Third Man clearly is an oddity- due to its great quality, and unlike the bloated solidity of The Agony And The Ecstasy or the execrable dotty musical Oliver!, this earlier film is the key to unraveling The Third Man's real provenance, for without it, those who deny Orson Welles' hand in that film can obscure their arguments with time, technical developments, and technique, while The Fallen Idol acts as a smoking gun that reveals its creator's limits, its alibiers' motives, and its successor film's great ineffability. And, for that, there is no contrived misreading needed!
This is not because The Fallen Idol is such a bad film- it's merely mediocre, even if it is based upon a Graham Greene work (as is The Third Man)- The Basement Room, but that there are only a few techniques in the film which augur the grandiosity of their usage in the later film- which was so Wellesian, that to contemplate that Reed soared to greatness out of mediocrity, for the single film he collaborated upon with Welles, then resumed a mediocre career, when the more Occam's Razor answer is that it was Welles who guided the vision of The Third Man, is to simply not recognize verities of the way art is created and the way artists work and mature.
As example, the two later Reed films I mention differ from The Third Man in that they are in color, in different genres, and made many years later, so that one could argue that Reed may have simply 'lost his touch.' But, given that The Fallen Idol was made a year earlier, is in black and white, and based upon a work by the same writer, the comparisons between the two films is apt, although the difference in quality is stark. But, why would Reed agree to such a thing? Well, he wanted to break into the American market, where this film did not do as well as other films by Britons as Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean, he shared political sympathies with and an artistic admiration of Welles. Plus, he got locked into a career track that led to greater financial success and recognition even as the requia for his solid artistic talents diminished in need. If you were a man who recognized his limits, and had a chance to help an idol whose techniques you aped, in exchange for personal success, would you refuse? Or would you do so, and deny the obvious to your grave?
Yet, especially in recent years, there seems to have been a critical movement afoot to try and argue that this mediocre film is somehow on par with The Third Man, and since it is so manifestly inferior, it begs a reasoning of the motives. The one which makes the most sense is that some critics want to argue that Reed was some visionary auteur, and that The Third Man was not such a great sore thumb in an otherwise workaday filmic resume. In short, the argument is clearly meant to bolster the claim that Reed was the force behind both films, rather than just the first one, and a beard for the second. Yet, The Third Man clearly is an oddity- due to its great quality, and unlike the bloated solidity of The Agony And The Ecstasy or the execrable dotty musical Oliver!, this earlier film is the key to unraveling The Third Man's real provenance, for without it, those who deny Orson Welles' hand in that film can obscure their arguments with time, technical developments, and technique, while The Fallen Idol acts as a smoking gun that reveals its creator's limits, its alibiers' motives, and its successor film's great ineffability. And, for that, there is no contrived misreading needed!