Most of the story of
The Third Man below is an abbreviated version of the outline on
Movie Locations for the Third Man. This site has images taken from the movie and links to other sites of interest to movie buffs.
Arriving at
[A] Westbahnbof (Vienna's West Railway Station), from which he later goes to watch Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) leave, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) is taken to Harry Lime's apartment building, which is supposedly 15 Stiftgasseí.
The palatial building, though, with its statuesque entrance, is
[B] Palais Pallavicini [Josefsplatz 5], across the street from the Spanish Riding School. Here Martins learns his pal died after being hit by a truck. Lime is‚ apparently‚ being buried with the great and the good in Vienna's
[C] Central Cemetery, the Zentral-Friedhof. (Zoom out for this one.)
At the funeral, Martins meets English intelligence officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), who arranges for him to stay at the venerable
[D] Hotel Sacher Wien [Philharmonikerstrasse 4].
Martins meets Lime's sinisterly camp friend, Kurtz, at another Viennese institution, the
[E] Cafe Mozart [Albertinaplatz 2].
And, like Holly Martins, going to see Anna, you can still attend performances at the
[F] Theater in der Josefstadt Theatre [Josefstadterstrasse 26]; or spend some time at the
[G] Casanova Club [Dorotheergasse 6], where Martins meets Kurtz and the second man to witness Lime's 'accident', Popescu.
Harry Lime (Orson Welles) finally makes his long-awaited entrance, a kitten nibbling the laces of his shoes, in the ornate doorway at
[H] Schreyvogelgasse 8. Martins chases Lime along
[I] Drahtgasse: remember Lime's enormous shadow moving over walls in a wet rain-soaked street? This is the street. The vast, cobbled square, in which Lime disappears, is
[J] Am Hof. (You will not see the central kiosk hiding the entrance to the sewers, however, as this was a prop erected for the film.)
Later, Lime comes to meet Martins at the Riesenrad, the
[K] Grand Ferris Wheelin the Prater, Vienna's huge park between the Danube and the Danube Canal. On the wheel, Lime berates Martins for his concern about the "ants" below and then gives his famous "cuckoo clock" speech.
Finally convinced of Lime's villainy, Martins colludes with the police trap, set at
[L] Hoher Markt, the oldest square in Vienna, with its elaborate 17th-century nuptial fountain. Lime retreats into the sewers beneath the city where he is cornered by police in the city's labyrinthine sewer system and shot dead. The police enter via a steel hatch still visible in
[M] Friedrichstrasse on Karlsplatz; the film crew actually used a metal cylinder-topped staircase on
[N] Lothringerstrasse.
The film closes with Anna taking a lonely walk along the tree-lined lane in
Central Cemetary (see
[C] above).