The Third Man remains one of the supreme achievements in filmmaking, an almost Renaissance-like collaboration and struggle among different talents from different corners of the world. The Americans Orson Welles and David O. Selznick, the British Carol Reed and Graham Greene, the (mostly Jewish) Central European refugees and the local zither idiot savant, Anton Karas, as well as the unique scenery of a broken but dignified magnificient city, Vienna. Drazin offers a pleasing and entertaining account how this film came into being and how the different contributors interacted.

Thus, it is a major regret that Drazin somehow was unable to get his Austrian history and facts straight. The mistakes pile up faster than Harry Lime's victims. The author calls the Austrian currency Schillers instead of Schilling, a truly puzzling mistake as any educated Brit must have heard about shillings. The Austrian Civil War of 1934, for instance, was a battle between the Socialists/Labour and the Conservatives/Catholics, the two having been at each others' throats for multiple decades. The Communists, much highlighted by the author, played only a minor role. It is a safe assumption that any element about Vienna and Austria the author mentions might be incomplete, inaccurate or even totally misleading if not invented by the author. Perhaps this is an unintended tribute to Orson Welles famous line in the film about "Swiss" cuckoo clocks which is totally erroneous in every element. Recommended (with caution) for film buffs. ( )