Carol Reed keeps the post-war intrigue alive for the most part with his Odd Man Out lead James Mason in this trifle uneven and occasionally slow suspense film that strongly resembles the director's magnificent Third Man.
Londoner Sussane Mallison (Claire Bloom) visits her serviceman brother and his wife in war torn Berlin. It isn't long before she suspects Bettina (Hildergard Neff) her sister in law of some type of deception. When she meets the mysterious Ivo Kern she is drawn into the action further, conflicted by the fact he is an extortionist and she is romantically drawn to him.
Reed does a good job of keeping the audience in the dark for a good deal of the film with Mason and Neff both convincingly ambiguous and Bloom as innocent and confused as Holly Martins. The devastated Berlin backdrop with the ubiquitous visage of Stalin in the Eastern sector provide grim atmospherics with cinematographer Dietrich Dikisson ably filling in for Reed regular DP Robert Krasker.
The editing which is a touch sloppy occasionally bogs the story down and the music score at times can be torturous to listen to but Mason's tragic turn as the cornered Kern never allows the film to fall into bathos for too long. He is the German version of the angry young man that would permeate film throughout the fifties and into the sixties and as The Man Between he is an eloquent spokesman in conveying the devastating disappointment of a generation betrayed by its government.
Londoner Sussane Mallison (Claire Bloom) visits her serviceman brother and his wife in war torn Berlin. It isn't long before she suspects Bettina (Hildergard Neff) her sister in law of some type of deception. When she meets the mysterious Ivo Kern she is drawn into the action further, conflicted by the fact he is an extortionist and she is romantically drawn to him.
Reed does a good job of keeping the audience in the dark for a good deal of the film with Mason and Neff both convincingly ambiguous and Bloom as innocent and confused as Holly Martins. The devastated Berlin backdrop with the ubiquitous visage of Stalin in the Eastern sector provide grim atmospherics with cinematographer Dietrich Dikisson ably filling in for Reed regular DP Robert Krasker.
The editing which is a touch sloppy occasionally bogs the story down and the music score at times can be torturous to listen to but Mason's tragic turn as the cornered Kern never allows the film to fall into bathos for too long. He is the German version of the angry young man that would permeate film throughout the fifties and into the sixties and as The Man Between he is an eloquent spokesman in conveying the devastating disappointment of a generation betrayed by its government.