The Third Man Blu-ray

CRITERION/IMAGE
Street: Dec. 16
Prebook: now
> Stellar high-def presentation of the classic noir thriller.

We reviewed Criterion’s standard DVD release of The Third Man in 2007, but the Blu-ray edition of Carol Reed’s post-war noir masterpiece demanded that we take another look. Treated to a 1080p transfer image, encoded with AVC/MPEG-4 and presented in its original aspect ratio, The Third Man is luxuriously realized on a high-definition monitor. Never before have black-and-white images been delivered with such care and attention to nuance. The fine grain of the nearly 60-year-old celluloid even appears to be celebrated. Ditto for the audio quality of Anton Karas’ haunting zither score, which is presented in an uncompressed English mono track that underlines the goings-on of stars Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles without distracting from writer Graham Greene’s masterful dialog. Criterion’s first dip into Blu-ray’s waters is a triumph.

Shelf Talk: As we said last year, The Third Man needs no introduction to classic cinema collectors, a group whose allegiance to Blu-ray could prove invaluable to the format. They probably already own Criterion’s two-disc standard version, but if there was ever a classic issued on Blu-ray that was going to sway cinephiles to take the high-def plunge, this is the one.