Editing Joseph Cotten (section)

==== ''The Third Man'' (1949) ====
Cotten was reunited with Welles in [[Carol Reed]]'s ''[[The Third Man]]'' (1949), produced by Korda and Selznick. Cotten portrays a writer of [[pulp magazine|pulp fiction]] who travels to postwar [[Vienna]] to meet his friend Harry Lime (Welles). When he arrives, he is told that Lime has died. Determined to prove to the police that his friend was murdered, he uncovers an even darker secret.{{refn|Welles and Cotten remained close friends until Welles's death in 1985. According to Welles, Cotten was always uncomfortable as a leading man and preferred to play supporting or [[character actor|character]] roles.<ref name=Biskind>{{cite book| editor-first= Peter |editor-last= Biskind | title= My Lunches with Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles| publisher= Macmillan | year= 2013}}</ref>}} Years later, Cotten would recall that "Orson Welles lists ''Citizen Kane'' as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for ''Shadow of a Doubt'', and Sir Carol Reed chose ''The Third Man'' – and I'm in all of them."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://quotlr.com/quotes-about-orson | title=40+ Mind-blowing Orson Quotes That Will Unlock Your True Potential | access-date=May 15, 2022 | archive-date=May 28, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528232917/https://quotlr.com/quotes-about-orson | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Cotten then reunited with Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman in ''[[Under Capricorn]]'' (1949)<ref name=classic/> as an Australian landowner with a shady past; it was a box office disappointment. So too was ''[[Beyond the Forest]]'' (1949) with [[Bette Davis]] at Warner Bros.<ref>{{cite news|title=Selznick Stars to do Movies for Warners|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 21, 1949|page=18}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=News of the Screen|author=Thomas F. Bradys|work=[[The New York Times]] June 22, 1948|page=22}}</ref>