The Man Between
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Harry Kurnitz; story by Walter Ebert
1953/UK
London Film Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Susanne Mallison: I’m not rich.
Ivo Kern: Any shelter from life is unattainable wealth.[/box]
I was hoping for something like The Third Man from Reed’s take on the divided City of Berlin. That was not to be. Still, spending a couple of hours with James Mason is never a bad thing.
The year is 1952, almost a decade before the Berlin Wall was erected. Berlin is still divided in sectors with people passing to and fro but with rather stricter controls on entrance to and exit from the Soviet zone. Suzanne Mallison (Claire Bloome) comes for a visit with her brother Martin and his German wife Bettina (Hildegard Neff). When Bettina meets Suzanne at the airport, a boy is lurking nearby. This boy will be a menacing presence throughout the first act.
Suzanne is interested in seeing the Soviet sector and Bettina takes her there the next day. There they run into an old friend of Bettina’s Ivo Kern (Mason). Ivo offers to act as Suzanne’s guide to Berlin and they are soon going out daily.
Unbeknownst to Suzanne, Ivo is being blackmailed to help some sinister figures kidnap Olaf Kastner, a friend of the Mallesons who has been helping Germans flee the Soviet sector. It develops that Ivo has a hold on Bettina and soon Suzanne is being used in a deadly game as well.
The atmosphere and acting in this were very good but the story could have been given more focus and tension. I found the film kind of confusing and I didn’t care all that much about the characters. Certainly, I am happy to have seen it once though.
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