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The Third Man: Review and Analysis

I checked The National Review's Corner Blog this evening and found that one of the writers there (Cliff May) had recently seen "The Third Man", and came away not liking it.

As some of you may know, I'm a sucker for 'Noir' Films. I’m also a sucker for war movies, even though as a rule war movies are usually really, really bad movies. "The Third Man" is a great movie for many reasons, first it is the very definition of a “Noir Film” and it is also not just a war movie, but a post-war movie. There aren’t many of them; this film and “The Big Lift” are two that come to mind. When you see burned out buildings in the backdrop of these films, its not stagecraft, it’s the detritus of the war that has killed 52 million people. In this film the residents of post-war Vienna play many of the extras and minor parts of the film. You can see the war reflected in their faces in ways that cannot be captured in the backlot at paramount or in Lucasfilms CGI. It's not makeup or acting that gives a person the ‘100 yard stare’, that’s life baby and its right there reflected in the eyes of folks who just a few years before the film was made were being bombed in their homes by their enemies and beaten in the streets by their neighbors friends.

"Film Noir" is a way of saying that the movie is about a dark subject. In my little group of fellow movie addicts its also a way of saying the film was shot "out of focus" by a drunk and decrepit film director. "Film noir" is often a shorthand for "crappy foreign film that only has artistic appeal and can barely keep a narrative going but youre supposed to like it anyway because everyone says so".

But "The Third Man" is not crappy or out of focus. It’s crystal clear. When pushed, men and women will do anything to survive and if you don’t think so, you’ve never been really, really hungry or desperate. All the characters of this movie are either in dangerous waters or resting by the shore of the river styx on their personal journey to purgatory.

"The Third Man" is a cold film. This first thing you notice is everyone wears greatcoats and hats all the time, even indoors. Post war Vienna is a decayed corpse of its former self. This is not a Capitol City of a once great empire, a place of commerce and art of factories and buildings. It’s a collection of debris too large to wash away with the rain. People live their life in post-war Vienna out of habit rather than choice.

It’s in this setting that four characters arrive. Our viewpoint is played by Holly Martins an American writer of dime novels that are based in a place he’s never been and life he’s never been a part of, the old west of the gunslingers. Holly has fallen into hard times, and a lifeline has been tossed to him from an old school friend, Harry Lime.

Harry has gone to some expense to send his friend a ticket to come to Vienna for a job. It’s not clear in the story what the job might be or what Harry intends. Holly doesn’t care, it’s a chance at something and to a desparate man, that beats nothing any day of the week. To the post-war, post-depression generation, this emotion would ring like a dinner bell.

On his arrival to Vienna, Holly discovers that his friend and benefactor is dead bringing his hopeful spring in his step to a lurching halt. Holly may be 12,000 miles from home, but he's right back where he started, nowhere. The film essentially begins in a graveside burial for Harry Lime. At this scene the other two significant characters are introduced. Inspector Calloway, a British police officer who is very curious as to the sudden arrival of an American civilian into the life of his criminal nemesis, Harry Lime.

And then there’s Anna. Anna is the pivot on which this movie turns. Anna is one of the women of post-war Europe who, if she is good at anything at all, she is good a survival. Anna has the unfortunate luck of being a Czech citizen. Unfortunate, because this in the Russian sphere of influence. If you want to know what that means, just look into her eyes. She will tell you everything you need to know about what totalitarian regimes mean to real people.

It’s at this point in the story that our protagonist Holly Martins begins to ask some questions about his friend’s death. How did it happen? Why the inconsistencies between the accounts of his death? Why is the Inspector taking such an interest in his friend, but seems unmoved and almost callous at his death. Holly decides to use his time in Vienna to discover the truth about his friend and how he died.

Each of us lives in a world that is not bound only by rational truth. Most of what we see in the world is what we want to see and not necessarily what is. Holly enters into his investigation to find the real story behind Harry’s death, and that’s just what happens, only not the way Holly had intended. The result is that Holly discovers more about his friend than he thought possible, and in the end more about himself than he ever wanted to know.

In his piece, Chris May asked several questions and I will attempt to answer them here:

It makes no sense that Anna and Holly would have such affection for Harry Lime, and that it then turns out that yes, Major Calloway is right: Harry Lime is indeed a baby killer who steals penicillin and then waters it down so that it turns from medicine to poison.

Each has their own reason for their affection for Harry. Harry is an enabler, a fixer, a scrounge. Harry is the guy you go to make things happen. In school, it was Harry that provided Holly with what he needed to survive, a stolen test here, a bully bought off there, Harry was able to make Hollys life livable ( for a price of course) It's not brought out in detail but its clear from some of the things they say that the school they refer to is a boarding school.

On the charge of baby killer, let’s also remember that Harry is an amoral fixer. I don’t believe it was his intent to cause the damage that he did, but I also don’t think it cost Harry any sleep. Those who are addicted to him, Like Anna will rationalize his crime away by saying that he meant well or that he didn’t really understand the consequences or whatever is convenient. Some people don’t want to see a monster for what they are even when it is self-evident.

Remember one other item, Holly himself has a hand in the death of an innocent. Due to Hollys ham handed approach to the Porter, who witnessed Harry's "Death", the Porter ends up being killed by Harry's associates. Graham Greene is sending that message the the audeince by having the little boy accuse Holly of killing the Porter to the crowd gathered outside the Hotel Sacher.

Did Holly kill the Porter? Holly didnt use his hands to kill him, but the Porter is dead all the same, and Holly could have kept this from happening just by thinking and taking a smater path. The Porter is dead due to Hollys incompetency. Is Holly guilty of the Porters death? By law, no, but by most moral sensibilities, he most certainly is.

Did Harry kill the kids with menengitis himself and with that purpose in mind? How much does ones intentions go in removing guilt in a crime? It is this debate that Graham Greene, a man who understood the nature, character and often the result of espionage, wants us to think about.

(Anna keeps saying to the Major: “You’ve got it all upside down.” And I kept trying to see how to turn it right, how to solve the mystery. But there is no mystery. The surprise is there is no surprise.)

Again, watch any episode of “Cops” and you’ll see this same reaction in women who are beaten within an inch of their lives by their husbands, yet scream and punch the police for taking their monster husbands to jail. “You just don’t understand officer I made him hit me”

What kind of scheme did Harry cook up? If you’re going to sell bogus penicillin why bother stealing real penicillin? And how many kids have to get sick before the hospital staff figures it out?

Harry’s scheme was to steal drugs in general and penicillin specifically out of the Army hospital and sell it to the civilian hospitals. His “inside man” Harbin did a reasonably good job, but he got pinched by the authorities (Calloway), and began to work as a double agent to get into Harry’s nefarious network. Harry discovered this, and this is why he was removed, in fact taking the place of Harry at his funeral. Demand for penicillin outstretched Harry’s ability to supply, so like all drug dealers, Harry cut the batch to make it go further to satisfy the demand. The buyers went to Harry because before he began to cut the drug, it worked and worked well. Remember two things, first this is a world of desperation and second, penicillin is a new and wondrous miracle drug, it is not the common pharmacological remedy that it is today.

Also: Why would Harry have a job for Holly, a writer of Western fiction, in his penicillin-stealing-and-watering-down-and-selling-it-to-hospitals-to-give-to-kids scheme? What use could he have been to Harry? He didn’t even speak German.

Maybe Harry intended Holly to be his substitute in the grave before a more convenient soul came along. It could also be that Harry intended to co-opt Holly and use him as a mule to move drugs across the border. Holly is about as straight laced a person as they come, no one would look twice at him.

And why would Harry bring him over to Vienna just when he was planning to fake his own death?

My interpretation is the revelation of Harbin as the double agent occurred while Holly was in transit. So the whole plan of the faking of his death was impromptu thing.

And why would Harry think Holly would be so depraved as to help him kill kids for cash anyway?

I don’t think there was any intent for that to happen. I also don’t think that it was Harrys intent to kill kids, it was “ just one of those things”.

And since that scheme was finally blown, how is Harry making a buck now?

For people like Harry, as long as there are people with desires, there’s a way to make a buck. My guess is that if he got Penicillin, morphine was probably not too far behind. Its also mentioned that Harry seems to be working with the Soviets.

Shouldn’t Anna be at least a tad shocked when she finds out what her lover was doing? Shouldn’t she have an opinion on it?

She is and she does, but she rationalizes it away.

And shouldn’t she be upset that he staged his death, didn’t tell her, and ditched her instead? Wouldn’t that at least be something she’d discuss with Holly?

She’s got a lot to deal with. She’s happy as hell that he’s alive and by the time she finds out all the details, he’s dead for real. In the mean time, she’s trying to stay out of the hands of the Soviets. Her relationship with Holly is not substantial, he can do very little for her and she knows it. She reveals nothing to Holly of any value about anything.

When Holly first sees Harry in the doorway, why does Harry run? What was he doing in that doorway anyhow? Who was he waiting for if not Holly or Anna?

He runs because he needs to remain in control of the situation (Maybe he didn’t see me, I still don’t know if my friend is on my side, or if he’s working for Calloway, if I run it will just be one drunk man who thought he saw a dead one).

In my opinion, he was waiting for Anna, and was intercepted by Holly. It was not in Harrys plan to be revealed, but once done, it could not be undone.

The cat? Why does the cat love Harry? Seriously, in films animals love people because they sense those people have a good heart. Harry doesn’t have a good heart. He’s a heartless murderer who would sell a cat to an all-you-can-eat restaurant.

It’s a device. We need the cat to give away Harry’s position in the scene. I would have looked odd for a random cat to just walk up and start nuzzling Harry's leg. so a cat 'pre-story' was created.

If Harry doesn’t want to see Holly – he runs away after being spotted in the doorway --why does he change his mind the next day and meet with him?

Because the risk is there that Holly will go to Calloway and tell him what he saw. Harry doesn’t know that holly has already done this. He’s still hoping to co-opt his friend, and he’s also trying to find out what he knows, as a back door way of finding out how close Calloway is to him and his network.

Whatever else Harry may be, he’s a smart cookie. Surely he knows he hasn’t sold Holly on the logic of killing kids for cash based on his soliloquy on the Ferris wheel, when he explains the Camus-lite view of the world that he’s now adopted. Surely, he knows that Holly doesn’t agree that children are just black dots lacking any meaning and value, so killing them is no biggie. So why does Harry go to meet with Holly again? What would be the upside? And how could he not see the downside risk?

To Harry, Holly is not a person as much as an asset or a liability. Harry’s whole life has been based on making sure that assets are used and liabilities eliminated. He goes to meet Holly to eliminate him as he has become a liability. Harry’s contempt for Holly as the underclassmen from their school days keeps him from seeing that Holly has betrayed him to Calloway until its too late.

Was Harry the third man who helped carry the dead body – which I suppose was really Harbin – across the street?
Yes.

Did no one see the body before it was put into the coffin?
No. Yes this is a problem, but relax its just a movie. There’s no CSI Vienna in the 1940’s

At the start of the movie, we hear from a narrator – a cynical Brit in some way involved in the black market. He seems like an interesting character. Who is he? Why do we never hear from him again?

The device of the voiceover is to give an entrance to the story, its quite common in films of the era. If you turn down the sound, it doesn’t change the nature of the story at all, but to 1940s audiences it helps them get in tune with the film. This is a pretty shocking film for that audience, today we live with realism in our films as something we expect and desire, but in that time, it is expected for films to not be “too real” as the viewing audience of that time found it distasteful to have a film presented as so close to reality. Movie audiences of that era are going to the movies to get away from reality, not get a close up view of what they just stepped out of.

Posted @ October 16, 2004 08:58 PM | Movie Reviews

Posted by: dittybopper at October 17, 2004 10:27 AM

Posted by: Brett Blatchley at October 17, 2004 03:26 PM