While not as enjoyable as my first adventure with the works of Greene (Our Man in Havana), both stories were still worth the read. I felt The Third Man was better than The Fallen Idol which makes me wonder a bit. Graham's stories are fairly short and so far, my liking for them have run in order of length with the longest being the best and the shortest being my least favorite. His characters are always interesting and fun, but he needs more pages devoted to developing them. ( )

Two of Graham Greene's shorter stories, both of which were given the film treatment by the legendary Carol Reed. I enjoyed 'The Third Man' a lot, but 'The Fallen Idol', originally a short story written in the 30s and called 'The Basement Room', seemed too slight, and I think it is included here for the sensible reason that it represents another of Greene's stories that was made into a film.

As for 'The Third Man', the film is better, and Greene accepts this too - in fact, the story was only written as a novel so that it would be easier to make a film out of it, rather than moving straight from the idea to the script. Reading it, one realises just how perfect Orson Welles was for the role of Harry Lime. ( )

Really good. ( )

The film is miles better. ( )

The Third Man was never written to be a novel - it was written to be made into a film and the film improves vastly upon this version. This is Graham Greene's opinion as well as mine. It is still enjoyable but I've definitely preferred other of Greene's novels. The Fallen Idol was a good exercise in building suspense but again not his best work. ( )