It’s been a long month of paying tribute to one of cinemas all time greats. The Third Man has stimulated the minds of viewers for many decades now. Our hope is that at the very least, a trip to Harry Lime’s Vienna will incite a passion to take in other unheralded film noir greats.

There are truly too many great noirs to do justice to in one post. Here we suggest to you just a few of our all-time favorites.

Here’s our own would-be noir soundtrack, inspired by The Third Man and the countless other noir genre films we’ve subjected ourselves to this month.

As Josh so succinctly stated in our previous article on defining film noir, it’s pretty much pointless. For every definition, at least one film breaks the rules. And yet, we know what we mean when we use the term. There are several general tropes (for lack of a better word) on view in the main body of noir films. In this article, we’ll explore just a few of them.

As cinephiles know, The Third Man is considered one of the greatest movies of all time. As with some great movies, it has been adapted into a not-so-great television show. A DVD collection, released by Timeless Media Group, features ten of the 77 episodes that the BBC ran from 1959 to 1965. Here, Harry Lime has been brought back to life as a do-gooder businessman/art dealer who also does detective work on the side.

Like all good film genres, noir had its share of low-budget drecks, put out by smaller studios to cash in on the trend. But, again, like all good genres, some of these “poverty row” noirs are actually terrific and totally worth your time. But if you’re going to check out just one, make that one is 1945′s Detour, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.

As we’ve previously covered, there are a lot of visual earmarks that help identify film noir. While L.A. Noire goes after them with a gusto, I can safely say I understand their decision to cut back for the needs of the modern gamer. It’s an easy comparison to make, but the cinematography of the game is most reminiscent of Curtis Hansons muted L.A. Confidential. The game evokes the same creamy pastels and deep focus found in that film. The graphics are so good that during one point in the game I found myself gawking at the site of a sun soaked L.A. circa the mid 1940s. I’d stopped playing and I was just watching this recreation of a world laid out before me.

Defining noir is a fools errand. The status of the term “film noir” itself is constantly in flux, as this collection of attributes is apparently not definable as a genre in and of itself. While the heyday of noir most often featured films that might be suitably classified as drama, adventure or thriller, the ensuing years have seen a cavalcade films in other genres that might also fit the loose definitions of noir. In other words, Blade Runner or Taxi Driver belong as much to this “sub-genre” as The Asphalt Jungle or even The Third Man itself. If this holds true, then we must define the characteristics of noir that bind such a seemingly disparate group of films. Over the ensuing series of articles, we’ll attempt to do just that.

Many movies begin life as novels, novellas, or short stories. Fewer, however, begin life as movies and then make the jump to the printed page, still under the auspices of their celebrated author. But that’s exactly the journey The Third Man underwent. Written as an original screenplay by English novelist Grahame Greene in 1949, the movie only later became a published novella of the same name.

The following hour long program is American Cinema’s attempt to define what exactly makes film noir so enduring, intangible and pervasive. Look for fantastic interviews with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader, both of Taxi Driver fame; A film widely recognized as an astounding contribution to the noir and neo-noir sub-genres.

There are plenty of reasons to adore the BBC, chief among them for me being their fantastic documentaries on a variety of subjects. Produced in 2007, Shadowing The Third Man is the beebs ultimate gift for fans of the film. This sprawling, hour long documentary covers The Third Man from tip to tail. It represents an astounding collection of interviews and behind the scenes information on the film and is highly recommended viewing to anyone with more than a passing interest in the making of one of the most iconic British films of all time.

If you’re ever in Vienna, you might want to make a stop at “The Third Man Museum”. Yes, while we at The Film League believe ourselves brave enough to write about a single film for a month, some hearty folks are staking an entire business on that one film. The museum was started by Gerhard Strassgschwandtner and Karin Hoefler in 2006, while the film was already 57 years old!

It sounds a bit like a father-son kind of chat, but a funny thing happens to a film of a certain age; It loses ownership. This is not unique to film, and the complexities of copyright law are dizzying enough to repel all but the overly inquisitive, but rest assured you’ve been exposed to more than a fair share of “public domain” material in your lifetime.