“Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don’t know what you’re mixing in.”

Plot Summary: American writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) travels to postwar Vienna, where he investigates the suspicious circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of his old friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles).   

Review:

Although producer David O. Selznick wanted to construct a studio recreation of Vienna for The Third Man, Reed insisted that it be shot on location, in and around the streets and buildings of the war torn city, and the director’s insistence certainly paid off, for it is precisely this realistic setting, with its dark, empty streets, gaping bomb craters, huge rubble piles and bombed out buildings, that gives The Third Man its palpably authentic sense of time and place. Yet Reed’s highly stylized direction also ensures that The Third Man is no mere exercise in realism, as the shadowy, chiaroscuro photography, wide-angle lenses and tilted angles provide a rich visual texture and evoke a menacing, off kilter world. Furthermore, the devastated setting and noirish visuals are closely tied to plot and theme, for they visually reflect the moral decay on view, embodied by Orson Welles’ Harry Lime, one of the cruelest villains ever to haunt the screen. Amazingly, although Welles has very little screen time, his character overshadows everything in the film. Before making his famous surprise entrance in that shadowy Vienna doorway, the other characters talk about little other than Lime, and so his presence is felt long before he’s actually seen. When he finally does appear, he’s utterly compelling, notably when delivering his infamous “cuckoo clock” speech. And after he disappears back into the subterranean depths of the Vienna sewer system, his character continues to reverberate throughout the story.

Holly Martins arrives in Vienna at his old pal Lime’s invitation, only to discover that Harry has seemingly been killed in a strange accident. Because the circumstances of his death are suspicious, Holly decides to get to bottom of it, against the wishes of lead investigator Major Calloway (wonderfully played by Trevor Howard), but with the assistance of Harry’s beautiful mistress Anna, with whom Holly falls in love. In the end, Holly may wish he’d taken Calloway’s advice not to investigate because he discovers truths about Harry (and himself) that might have been better left unknown. At first Holly doesn’t believe Harry is capable of perpetrating the horrible crimes Calloway accuses him of - selling diluted penicillin at the expense of dying children - but as the evidence against Harry mounts so too does Holly’s disillusionment. But Holly doesn’t fully comprehend the extent of Harry’s depravity until he talks to his old friend face to face during their memorable Ferris wheel ride. As the giant wheel slowly revolves, Harry defends his crimes with a chilling illustration. Directing Holly’s attention to the people below, he asks, “Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spend - free of income tax, old man, free of income tax.”

Screenwriter Graham Greene gave Welles credit for writing the “cuckoo clock” speech, but it is this speech, which resonates with pure evil, that truly exposes Lime’s dark soul. To Lime the children who suffer and die as a result of his greed are just so many meaningless obstacles in the way of his aims. So vile are Harry’s crimes that Holly agrees to help Calloway set a trap for him, which leads to one of cinema’s most memorable climaxes. Trapped in the underground sewer system, Harry scurries around like a frightened, cornered rat, desperately searching for a way out. Interestingly, during this sequence Reed switches to Lime’s point of view for the first time, allowing us to see what he sees, hear what he hears, and experience what he experiences. The cavernous sewer, with its network of elongated watery tunnels, is a giant echo chamber, which renders Harry helpless to determine from which direction the voices and footsteps of his pursuers are coming or in which direction he should run from them. And when Harry does manage to catch a glimpse of his pursuers, they take the form of huge shadows on the walls, as if giant shadow people were chasing Harry. No wonder he looks petrified! Using expressionistic lighting and eerie, echoing sound effects, Reed turns Harry’s former hiding place-cum-escape route into a frightening, claustrophobic, subterranean hellhole from which no escape is possible. I can’t imagine a more fitting end to Harry than this. Ironically, it is Holly, in perhaps a final act of friendship, who finally puts Harry out of his misery.

In the classic final scene, Holly’s hopes for a romance with Anna are dashed forever. After Harry’s funeral, Holly waits for her outside the cemetery grounds, and as she walks down the long cemetery road toward Harry, Reed holds the shot as she steadily approaches, and we (and Holly) expect them to embrace. Instead, Anna simply walks past Harry without the slightest acknowledgement of his existence, causing the dejected Harry to light a cigarette and flick his match away in abject resignation. If there is a more powerful moment of crushing disillusionment in cinema, I have not seen it. The Third Man is one of those rare productions in which all the parts — from the intelligent script and the stylish direction to the stunning photography and the impeccable cast - combine to form one exquisite, seamless whole, with Anton Karas’s memorable zither score, at once lively and mournful, adding the perfect finishing touch and turning an already sublime film into an incomparable cinematic masterpiece.

Posted on July 26th, 2008 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews