Friends and Enemies in The Third Man: Part I

After World War II, the United States emerged as a world power, and films from more than one nation reflected a profound ambivalence about the new reality.  In Japan, filmmakers like Ozu and Kurosawa expressed it from the viewpoint of a vanquished nation.  On the other side of the world, our allies — grateful though they were over American intervention — were equally wary over the new world order.

In this period, The Third Man stands out: though it is a product of British minds (director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene), it takes place in Vienna, a city occupied by the Allies for a decade after the War.   Because of this, there is a kind of multiple-sensibility about the production that reflects the multi-national character of its context.  First, there is the cynical, world-weary tone of the “natives,” who have seen — and many times done — it all.  They are survivors, eking out a living via the black market, shady trading deals, and just plain double dealing.  But over it all is an European veneer of erudition and gentility that infuses even the shadiest of characters.

Valli, Cotten and Howard

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the American Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) who is  brash, loud, and not very intelligent.  He wades right into situations he knows nothing about, propelled by an indignant sense of black and white not shared by his more sophisticated hosts.  He is a writer of pulp Westerns, of the serial variety, which is eminently fitting;  here’s a bit of early dialog between Martins and the British Major Calloway (Trevor Howard).  The major has picked the American up at his friend Harry Lime’s funeral, and is plying him with liquor while pumping him for information.

Martins (referring to Lime):  . . . Best friend I ever had.
Calloway:  That sounds like a cheap novelette.
Martins:  I write cheap novelettes.
Calloway:  I’m afraid I’ve never heard of you. What’s your name again?
Martins:  Holly Martins.
Calloway:  No, sorry.
Martins:  You ever hear of  “The Lone Rider of Santa Fe?”
Calloway:  Can’t say as I have.
Martins:  “Death at Double X Ranch,” uh, “Raunch” (feigning an English accent)?
Calloway:  Nope.

Calloway is, of course, the embodiment of an European sense of their own superiority over their saviors from across the pond. Like Martins’ heroes, they have ridden into the continental town and vanquished the bad guys.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have the decency to ride off into the sunset and leave them alone.  As Calloway tells him:  “This isn’t Santa Fe.  I’m not a sheriff and you aren’t a cowboy. “

Although Calloway hasn’t heard of Martins’ stories, his aide Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee) certainly has — he is a fan of Martins, and makes no bones about it.  But although he appreciates the American’s product, he nevertheless does not hesitate to punch him in the mouth when required.  Together with Calloway, they constitute the model of the traditional British power-structure: a decent working-class man serving an upper-crust “master.”  (Is Calloway of the landed class?  Is he the second or third son of a member of the House of Lords?)

This is opposed to lone cowboy Martins, who has no master, and is therefore dangerous to his British protectors, the shady Viennese criminals, and most of all, to himself.  Like the runaway dynamite truck in The Wages of  Fear, Martins hurtles downhill uncontrolled, threatening to mow everybody down in his path.  As Calloway tells him in the movie’s best throw-away line,  “You were born to be murdered.”

But like the Americans in World War II (or like this European portrayal of them, anyway), Martins’ ham-fisted bumbling manages to triumph in the end.  He brings the wily Lime to bay, something Calloway with all his European savvy and erudition had not yet managed to do.  And because of his clumsy bravery, he wins Calloway’s friendship — if not respect — in the end.

To portray all this European seediness, Reed and company chose film noir, an ostensibly American  genre. Of course, it is wholly appropriate to the subject matter: like Vienna’s lovely exterior, its beautiful photography hides a murkiness just beneath, where things are anything but black and white.  The Russian femme’s (Alida Valli) attraction to the dangerous Lime is tempered by her knowledge of his ilk; this classic noir trope embodies the the city’s ambiguity.   And as in post-War Vienna, things aren’t quite as they seem with noir itself:  though casual film goers think  it a purely Hollywood phenomenon, we pointy-headed cinephile types know it was built on a European chassis.  German Expressionism mated with French Poetic Realism and their bastard child was film noir.

But enough over-thinking (and metaphor mixing): Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is of a completely different stripe than his countryman Martins.  Holly is guileless, Harry the picture of deceit.  Holly is bumbling, Harry coldly competent.  Holly speaks in terms of black-and-white, right and wrong, but Harry gives us great, orotund gusts of self-serving gray.  He is the American doppelgänger of those in the Viennese underworld, and  is the subject of Part II, where we’ll dissecting the famous scene that reveals him as alive.  Be there or be square.