tension

Go to You Tube, and type in
The Third Man
A list will appear underneath this title: about four lines down, or so, it will say, "The Third Man cuckoo clock"
Click on that
Then the first three selections they offer you at the top -- two of them are :20 seconds or so. One is 6 minutes. Play the 6-minute one.

The setting is Vienna right after World War II. The city was divided into quarters -- U.S. ran one; Russia ran one; and the other two, can't remember....
"The Third Man" was filmed on location. The plunky zither music is to help us feel like we are in Vienna in 1945. And it works.

I first heard this cuckoo clock argument from my American History professor, sophomore or junior year of college. (He told it to us, but he didn't support it.) He didn't mention it was in a movie. So it came as a surprise -- a "ding!" moment -- when I was watching "The Third Man" (on a big screen, thank you very much wonderful Coolidge Corner Theater!!) and the actor Orson Welles told Professor Offner's story.

It's a funny, surprising feeling: like having someone grab you and hug you when you didn't expect it.

The tension in this movie clip: genius.

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