L'homme de Berlin

In the Post-World War II, the British Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom) travels to Berlin to visit her older brother Martin Mallison (Geoffrey Toone), a military that has married the German Bettina Mallison (Hildegarde Neff). The naive Susanne snoops on Bettina and suspects that she is hiding a secret from her brother.

When Susanne meets Bettina with her friend Ivo Kern (James Mason), he offers to show Berlin to her and they date. But Ivo meets the strange Halendar (Aribert Waescher) from the East Germany and Susanne takes a cab and return to her home alone. Then she dates Ivo again and he meets Olaf Kastner (Ernst Schroeder), who is a friend of Martin and Bettina. But soon Susanne, who has fallen in love with Ivo, learns that he was a former attorney married to Bettina in East Germany but with a criminal past during the war. Now he is blackmailed by Halendar to kidnap Kastner and bring him back to the other side of the border. The plan fails and Halender asks his men to abduct Bettina to get Kastner. However, Susanne is kidnapped by mistake and is imprisoned in the basement of a house in East Berlin. Now Ivo plots a plan to rescue Susanne from Halender and help her to cross the border. Will they succeed in their intent?

"The Man Between" is another wonderful classic by Carol Reed with suspense and romance in the post-war Berlin totally destroyed, in the same environment of Rossellini's "Germania Anno Zero" or Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair". James Mason has another top-notch performance in the role of Ivo Kern, a cynical man that changes his behavior when he meets the naive and charming character performed by Claire Bloom. Their chemistry is fantastic and Hildegarde Neff is a very beautiful woman. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Outro Homem" ("The Other Man")

In 1947,James Mason worked with Carol REED,in "Odd man out" (in Belfast).This work was influenced by Marcel Carné's "realisme poétique" and cast Mason as a fugitive.Both "odd man out" and "the man between " have similar endings,except for the female part.

Berlin atmosphere (like Vienna in 'the third man') is well rendering,with the claustrophobia you used to feel during the Wall days. There are plotholes,but the cast easily makes up for that.The couple Mason /Bloom is very endearing:Mason 's character is a man whose ideals have been betrayed and his love for the beautiful English woman he tries to save is touching .Actually ,at the beginning,Mason was not friendly,he was even disturbing,but his moral stature ceaselessly grows towards the end.The two stars get good support from German thespian Hildegarde Kneff,whom we miss in the second part.

This movie might have influenced two sixties work:"the spy who came in from the cold"(Martin Ritt,1965) which featured Claire Bloom again,and "torn curtain" (1966),one of Hitchcock's minor movies in which we find a theater again!FF Coppola in "godfather III" ,like Carol Reed,took advantage of this by using opera music to enhance particular scenes.

Although inferior to 'the third man" (neither Welles nor Karas) "odd man out' or even "fallen idol" (1948),"the man between " deserves to be seen.

Claire Bloom has just arrived in post-war Berlin to vacation with her brother who is in the British Army and his new German wife (played by Hildegard Knef). Knef shows Bloom all about Berlin--both the Allied and the Russian sectors. In the east, the meet James Mason--a mysterious man who soon begins dating Bloom. However, there's obviously much more to the man than this and he and Knef share some secret. Later, through a strange series of events, Bloom is accidentally kidnapped and it's up to dashing Mason to help her sneak back to West Berlin--all the while pursued with Communists bent on their capture.

The film has a look very similar to director Reed's more famous preceding film, THE THIRD MAN--which was shot in post-war Vienna. However, the camera work in THE THIRD MAN was more daring and novel and the Berlin took far worse damage during the war--and the sheer volume of rubble in 1953 is still very significant and adds to the atmosphere.

Overall, while not a great spy film, it is very good and keeps your interest. I would say, overall, that the second half is a bit more exciting than the first. I especially liked the ending, though some might have preferred something a bit more upbeat.

By the way, James Mason seemed to do a fairly good job with speaking German. I could tell he wasn't exactly a native speaker, but he was pretty adept.

The bleak war-torn settings of East and West Germany during the post-war years of WWII provide a suitable backdrop for a rather cold tale involving complex characters and moral ambiguities.

The story's first half takes time to set up the murky relationships between CLAIRE BLOOM, HILDEGARD KNEF and JAMES MASON before settling down to some quieter moments and romantic overtones when the chemistry between the young girl (Bloom) and the dangerous criminal (Mason) becomes evident. It's their relationship in the second half of the story that heats up some of the cold war atmosphere of the tale.

Suspense mounts as they hide out from the German authorities, but all the while one gets the feeling that all will not end well for the ill-fated pair who have fallen deeply in love.

If you liked the somber atmosphere of films like ODD MAN OUT and THE THIRD MAN, you'll definitely enjoy the atmospheric effects achieved in the crisp B&W photography on display here. Outstanding photography in scene after scene, although the story itself never quite achieves the same degree of finesse as the previously mentioned Carol Reed films.

Nevertheless, it's all extremely well acted. Mason has never been more effective as a complex man full of moral ambiguities and Bloom is given a wonderful chance to display her charm and sensitivity in a well-written role.

Definitely worth watching.

James Mason gives a tour-de-force performance as a tired clerk who knows not who to trust. Hildegrade Knef is magnificent in a complex supporting role. Carol Reed has directed some great movies and this is among his best. The ending sequence is so poignant, it always brings tears to the eyes.