The Vienna Giant Wheel, or Wiener Riesenrad in German, is not accidentally a top filming location. The old-fashioned giant wheel located in the huge Viennese park called the Prater, is both a charming and a majestic sight with its airy steel cable spokes and red wooden carriages. And yet, for some reason this magical structure does not get the recognition it deserves. It was originally built for Franz Josef I’s Golden Jubilee and would have been dismantled in 1916, but it luckily survived simply because of a lack of funding to dismantle it. The surviving wheel was the world’s tallest extant Ferris wheel between 1920 and 1985. It has since become a true trademark and one of the main landmarks of the Austrian capital. They say that whoever takes a ride on it and views the city from the amazing perspective the wheel offers, will fall in love with Vienna for sure.
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Filmed at this location
The 120 year old Vienna Giant Wheel has played important roles in countless world famous film productions, which is why it was awarded the Treasure of European Film Culture title in 2016 by the European Film Academy. Probably the most famous film shot here is Carol Reed’s iconic 1949 film noir The Third Man, which was entirely shot on location in Vienna. For example they shot the scene here where the main character Holly Martins, meets for the first time with his friend Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles, who he had thought had died a long time ago. The wheel was used as a location for an iconic first kiss scene in the 1987 James Bond film called The Living Daylights, as well as for another romantic kiss scene in the 1995 film Before Sunrise.