The Wiener Riesenrad

No longer the biggest of the big wheels, but certainly one of the most widely seen

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MADE IN 1949 and often ranked as the best British movie of all time, The Third Man is a film noir set in a still war-ravaged Vienna. Pulp fiction writer Holly Martins, played by Joseph Cotten, has arrived at the request of his old friend Harry Lime (the inimitable Orson Welles), only to discover that Lime is about to be buried after apparently dying in mysterious circumstances. But then he catches a fleeting glimpse of the still very much alive Lime, and a rendezvous is arranged at the giant Ferris Wheel in the city’s Wurstelprater amusement park.

As the wheel rotates, Welles famously delivers his self-penned speech in a paraphrase of which he declares: ‘Italy, after 30 years of bloodshed and terror under the Borgias, still managed to produce Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance, while in Switzerland they had 500 years of democracy and peace and produced the cuckoo clock.’ Welles’ presence, despite only ten minutes on screen in the total 1hr 44min running time, dominates the film as the cynically amoral dealer in stolen and adulterated penicillin. Three of those ten minutes are spent on the giant wheel.

The Vienna Riesenrad (‘travelling wheel’) opened on 3 July 1897 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph, with thousands gathered in the amusement park to watch.