“Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Harry Lime – The Third Man (1949)

I wanted to start a film blog way back in 2018 and thought carefully about the content and how to present it. I launched my first, and only, post in 2019.

This was on Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) which is one of my all-time favourite films and where the title of this blog comes from. Coincidentally, I had recently moved to the south Hertfordshire town where the screenwriter Graham Greene resided for a little while. Sadly no more posts came even though I was filled with ideas. I found I just didn’t have the headspace to write.

Since then I changed careers and am now lucky enough to work as a Researcher for a film and television archive. We also experienced a global pandemic. Like so many of you, I had more time at home so as a consequence was watching a lot more films and the enthusiasm to start noodling around with some potential blog posts came back. I wrote several but didn’t feel ready to publish at that stage, this was mainly due to me feeling the ideas were a bit random and lacking an overall theme but also due to shyness. It’s hard putting your work out there and I have infinite admiration for those who do.

I’m still shy and the contents of each post will remain random but I feel ready to go. Expect a mid to long read on a variety of films across all genres. As a personal challenge I will be watching as many Nicolas Cage* films as is possible to obtain via legal means and in chronological order so musings on that odyssey will feature.

This blog is ultimately for myself – it’s a useful way to be writing regularly and to give my thoughts around film an outlet. As Clarence the Angel says though “no man is a failure who has friends”, so I hope some of you will subscribe and join me. I would love to have you and hear your opinions on the films featured.

*At time of writing Cage has not said/done anything insane or illegal, joined Q-Anon, said the world is run by lizards or has appeared in the Epstein papers. He seems to be getting on with life just fine and is hopefully still drinking wine with his cobras.