Friends and Enemies in The Third Man: Part II

The post-World-War-II reality of American global hegemony was viewed with deep ambivalence by our European allies.  In Part I, we took a look at how that dynamic is portrayed in The Third Man, as filtered through the sensibilities of the British Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), and embodied by Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten).  Martins is portrayed as the stereotypical American boor who — although clueless and gauche — nevertheless by main force blunders into a solution to the problem of Harry Lime (Orson Welles).

At the film’s end — after Lime’s second funeral  — Calloway offers Martins a lift to the airport, and displays a grudging respect; at the same time, he’s still trying to ensure that Martins does indeed go away. Americans are like strangers who ride into town, vanquish the bad guys, but don’t bother to ride away when they’re done.

Films are often structured around a triangular set of relationships; in film noir, it is often a pair of interlocking triangles.   At the apex of one is a representative of law and order: a detective, perhaps, or an insurance investigator  (see, for example, The Killers and Double Indemnity).  The relationship between the protagonist and the femme fatale forms the common side of the two triangles (e.g., the axis around which both triangles interact).  Finally, the apex of the opposite triangle is often a “dupe,” a person — or group of persons — that the fatale and the protagonist conspire to swindle.  In The Postman Always Rings Twice and  Double Indemnity, this person is the husband of the femme fatale.

Although obviously a generalization, you can see that depending on how each of these “points” in the triangle are emphasized, and  how they are connected, variations in the dynamic of this basic structure are many.   Here’s the structure of The Third Man:

At the center of the structure (and thus the plot) is not the relationship between Martins and Schmidt but that between Martins and Lime, who fills the role of femme fatale. Within the plot, Schmidt acts almost as a MacGuffin, a device to bring together Lime and Martins.  Holly falls for Schmidt, and it is after Harry trails him to her place that they finally meet.

And that meeting is what we have been waiting for the entire film: the entire production is structured around it.   Here are some screen caps from the scene:

Martins has just left Anna Schmidtz’ apartment; from her window, he has glimpsed a watcher in the street, whom he assumes is a policeman, or a spy.  He is dwarfed by the architecture of Vienna, clearly out of his league.  He is also drunk.

Cut to a doorway.  There is a cat in it, and the hint of a shadowy figure.  We know what that means: in the previous scene, Schmidt tells Martins that the cat will only come to Harry Lime.  This is one of The Third Man’s many dutch-angled shots.  Close friend William Wyler is said to have sent Reed a spirit level, urging him to put it on the camera the next time he made a picture.

Holly hears the cat, and he veers from his path up the hill to investigate.  Cut to another shot of the doorway, this time from his P.O.V.  Even though we have tumbled to the significance of the cat, Holly hasn’t — he leans drunkenly on the a building yelling for the “spy” to come out.  He is always a step behind in the flow of things.

Cut to a close-up of the cat, in case we haven’t gotten it.  Suspense is built: although we know who it is, when will we going to see him?  How is he going to be revealed?  The cat, at least, is unconcerned.

We hear cursing coming from a window, yelling for Martins to keep quiet. Then a  light comes on et voilá: Harry Lime.  Once again, the truth has been revealed by the American’s blundering.

Although the iconic shot, the one we remember, is that final sardonic image (see below), this sequence shows the gamut of emotions from Lime.  It is not at all certain that this will be a happy reunion for Martins; although the scene on the Ferris wheel is more blatant, it is here that Welles first reveals the dangerous nature of his character.  He glances up at the light, then back at Martins, and is not at all glad to see him.

The shot for which this sequence (if not the entire film)  is remembered.  Lime has decided how he wants to handle the encounter, and for emphasis, the camera zooms in on his face.  When it gets there, Welles lifts his eyebrow and smirks; it is a defining moment.  He is breaking the fourth wall, smirking at us, letting us in on the joke, saying: “Ok, here ya’ go, what you were waiting for … Was it worth it?”

Cut back to Holly, then to the window with the cursing German, whose voice has been heard throughout the sequence.   Then the light is off and Harry is gone.  The entire sequence — from light on to light off — takes 21 seconds, but in those seconds, Welles gives a master class in acting, as Harry decides how to react.  And though we remember that final, raised eyebrow, we have seen the danger, and it’s stored down somewhere in our synapses, ready to be made explicit in a later scene.

Holly starts across the street, but a car comes speeding along, forcing him to hold up.  We can see the figure of Lime in the doorway.  Then Reed cuts to another angle, and backs up in time, repeating the last second or so.

The figure of Lime is in the first shot from this angle, and Martins sprints to the doorway, only to find …

Harry has vanished.  As if he was never there.  From the angles and the way the sequence is cut together, we see that it is impossible for Harry to have escaped without us — or Holly –  seeing him go, but he has.   He is a supernatural force … a ghost, a phantom.  All we hear are his footsteps.

Holly follows the sound of Harry’s footsteps around a corner, and sees his shadow fleeing, projected onto a wall.  He follows, and their images merge . . . Harry’s shadow becomes that of Holly.

Thus is the European ambivalence toward their allies made concrete:  America has a shadow side, and it is embodied by Harry Lime.  Harry is the worst impulse of the free market system, capitalism at its darkest: far from just dealing in black market gasoline or back-of-the-truck tires, he sells diluted penicillin, killing the children of Vienna.  Thus is profit made from the suffering of others; it reminds me of the current health-care debate, where profit is made not from people made healthy, but only a population kept ill.