Passes the Bechdel test
The Third Man
1950. Directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene and Alexander Korda and Carol Reed.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
3 / 3
Passes
-
Yes
1. At least two women
5 women characters. 3 of them speak. -
Yes
2. Who talk to each other
In 1 scene out of 5. -
Yes
3. About something besides a man
In that scene, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.
Second opinion
Disagree bechdeltest.com readers give it 0 out of 3.
The film
An out-of-work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post-war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, where a shortage of supplies has led to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates, Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.
- Released
- 01 Feb 1950
- Genres
- Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
- Rated
- Approved
- IMDb
- 8.1 / 10
- Metascore
- 97 / 100
- Awards
- Won 1 Oscar. 6 wins & 4 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Martins 380 lines, man
- Anna 175 lines, woman
- Calloway 156 lines, man
- Porter 55 lines, man
- Harry 52 lines, man
- Paine 49 lines, man
- Kurtz 43 lines, man
- Popescu 39 lines, man
- Crabbin 34 lines, man
- Commentator 29 lines
Full cast, 27 people
- Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins
- Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt
- Trevor Howard as Major Calloway
- Orson Welles as Harry Lime
- Paul Hörbiger as Karl the Porter
- Ernst Deutsch as 'Baron' Kurtz
- Erich Ponto as Dr. Winkel
- Siegfried Breuer as Popescu
- Hedwig Bleibtreu as Anna's Landlady
- Bernard Lee as Sergeant Paine
- Wilfrid Hyde-White as Crabbin
- Alexis Chesnakov as Col. Brodsky the Russian Liaison Officer (uncredited)
- Thomas Gallagher as Taxi Driver (uncredited)
- Herbert Halbik as Hänsel the Little Boy with Ball (uncredited)
- Hannah Norbert as Actress at Josefstadt Theater (uncredited)
- Eric Pohlmann as Waiter at Smolka's (uncredited)
- Carol Reed as UK Version's Opening Narrator (uncredited)
- Annie Rosar as The Porter's Wife (uncredited)
- Frederick Schrecker as Hansel's Father (uncredited)
- Hugo Schuster as Waiter (uncredited)
- Karl Stepanek as Actor at Josefstadt Theater (uncredited)
- Theodore Gottlieb as Man on Street (uncredited)
- Jenny Werner as Dr. Winkel's Maid Hilde (uncredited)
- Reed De Rouen as American Military Policeman(uncredited)
- Geoffrey Keen as British Military Policeman (uncredited)
- Robert Brown as Britush Military Policeman in Sewer Chase (uncredited)
- Paul Carpenter as International Patrol D (uncredited)
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 1 scene, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 5% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 5
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 1 | 0 | 214 |
| 2 to 2 | 3 | 38 |
| 3 to 3 | 31 | 28 |
| 4 to 4 | 102 | 380 |
| 5 to 5 | 86 | 369 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: the passing scenes
The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
LANDLADY: Was 1st donn nun wieder les. Wird das so weiter gehen? Kommen sie jetz jeden tag zu uns? Was machen, denn die dadringen. LANDLADY: Kommen sie nicht rader Ja nichten nichten nichten. Das kennen jeder. LANDLADY: Rade sollen sie kommen sie nicht deutch? Die sprechen hatten sie schon langst lernen kommen. Large genug sind sie jat hier, Jetz geht er. Wa… ANNA: Where are you taking me?
LANDLADY: Haben sie denn garne in shame ••• ANNA: Aber regen sie sich nicht aur. LANDLADY: Un glaublich!
Exhibit B: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 18 are women's.
222 lines from women, 1029 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who's in it
5 women and 22 men in the cast. 3 women and 42 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit D: who gets heard
The first woman speaks at line 263 of 1,316.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 262 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 16% of the words (1,802), men 84% (9,224). Women have 18% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.
Exhibit E: the test the other way
Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
2
Two men
76
Exhibit F: behind the camera
None of the 6 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 11% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Carol Reed (man)
- Written by
- Graham Greene (man)
- Produced by
- Carol Reed (man)
- Shot by
- Robert Krasker (man)
- Edited by
- Oswald Hafenrichter (man)
- Music by
- Anton Karas (man)
The crew, department by department
-
Sound
0 women, 4 men, 2 not listed
-
Art
0 women, 4 men, 1 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 5 men
-
Production
0 women, 4 men, 1 not listed
-
Directing
1 women, 3 men
-
Costume & Make-Up
1 women, 0 men, 2 not listed
-
Other crew
1 women, 0 men, 1 not listed
-
Editing
0 women, 2 men
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit G: how old the stars were
Women: 54 on average. Men: 47 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Alida Valli 28, Hedwig Bleibtreu 80
Men
Orson Welles 34, Trevor Howard 35, Bernard Lee 41, Siegfried Breuer 43, Joseph Cotten 44, Paul Hörbiger 55, Ernst Deutsch 58, Erich Ponto 64
Exhibit H: the money
What it cost and made, where TMDB lists it.
- Budget
- Not listed
- Box office
- $1.2 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 5 scenes and 1,316 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works
