This is the 10th example of how John Walsh’s The Third Man: The Official Story of the Film steals from my book In Search of the Third Man. Not the least of my objections is its title, since a copyright infringement of my work surely cannot be “official”. Two months after publication, I am still waiting for Studiocanal, which owns the copyright in Walsh’s book, to address this issue.
What follows is the last example of copyright infringement that I shall examine in detail. I have not – so far – found any more passages of sustained copying, but in any case 10 is a good round number with which to conclude a gathering of evidence that has taken up too much of my time over the past few weeks.
Page 136 of The Third Man: The Official Story of the Film closely paraphrases pp.88–9 of In Search of The Third Man.
First, Walsh’s plagiarizing text:
And next, the text from my book that he copies:
So to summarize, Walsh uses his own words but copies the passage in my book, point for point, as follows:
Carol Reed keen to keep information about the film to a minimum;
quote of what Reed tells the publicity director of London Films, Ingram Fraser;
after Valli lets slip details about the plot, Fraser agrees to talk to the actors;
quote from Fraser;
Reed upset to read Welles described as “Harry Lime, an American racketeer”;
Reed writes to Fraser to express his view on the issue;
quote from Reed’s letter to Fraser.
Walsh’s plagiarism is all the worse because he distorts the accuracy of what he copies. So, for example, in the passage above I did not state that Welles himself described his role as that of “Harry Lime, an American racketeer”, but rather that London Films gave away this information.
“You’ve proved your stuff,” says Holly Martins after Major Calloway has shown him the evidence of Harry Lime’s wrongdoing, and I feel I have too.
For a link to all the passages of copyright infringement that I have found in The Third Man: The Official Story of the Film, click here.
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