The Third Man, 1949. Directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene (with uncredited help from Alexander Korda and Orson Welles). Starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Paul Horbiger, Ernst Deutsch, Siegfried Breuer, Erich Ponto, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Hedwig Bleibtreu, and Orson Welles.
With the person of Holly Martins, Graham Greene created a character I can relate to more than anyone else on the silver screen. Holly is:
Lonely,
Confused, and
In Over His Head.
Just like I am on most days. That’s one of the reasons why I love The Third Man more than any other movie.
Just look at Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins. His loping gait, sour mug, his desire to come to the bottom of a mystery while at the same time failing to realize he will never get to the bottom of any mystery, ever. Look at him drinking, trying to bully those people who will not be bullied by the likes of him. Holly Martins: a fellow lost in his dime store novels who can’t do the right thing if was written on a bank note, locked into a safe and rolled over on him. Holly Martins: split into a million pieces, loyal to a friend he barely knows, just as easily in love with a woman he’s just met, ready to turn the world upside-down for a secret he doesn’t even come close to knowing.
Holly came to Vienna to get hooked up with a job. Vienna is a lovely wreck, quartered in the wake of the Second World War, run by the Americans, Brits, French and Russians. It’s a city of great secrets, a city desperately trying to keep its head above water. Holly doesn’t know any of this, nor does he care. His old pal from school–Harry Lime, you know, the guy who could get away with anything–wants old Holly, the dime store novelist, to write propaganda for his medical organization. There goes Holly, full of spit ‘n’ vinegar, fresh off the train, walking under ladders, and then, whoops, dumbfounded when he hears his pal is dead, struck down by a car and carried to the side of the road by two men.
The Porter of Lime’s apartment, informing Martins of Harry’s death: “He is,” says the Porter, pointing up, “how do you say, in hell?” Pointing down. “In heaven?”
That’s bad. Holly has no money, no prospects, and since he dropped everything to come to Vienna, why, now what’s he going to do? Look at him, right there, standing at the funeral service, eyebrows furrowed, looking like the lovely dimwit that he is. Who can’t feel for this noble dope? He sees Lime’s girl Anna for the first time, falls in love with her in an instant. Major Calloway of the British forces is also at the funeral, feels sorry for the poor Holly, and asks him along for a ride to town and a free drink.
Holly will drink all right. And then, when Major Calloway informs him that it’s probably to the world’s benefit that a rogue like Harry Lime is dead, Holly tries to punch the captain. And fails. In fact, Holly gets punched, shot at, chased, and bitten by a parrot. Worst of all, he falls as deeply in love as he is capable. All the while he can’t protect himself, can’t do anything but shadow box. And lose.
Amidst the ruins of this once-great city, Holly bumbles around trying to get to the bottom of his friend’s death, which he believes was a murder. Government officials and evil henchmen in rabbit-fur coats and bow ties ignore him for the most part, both suggesting he should leave, but both realizing he probably won’t amount to much whatever his choice. Holly can stay or leave for all they care.
He’s a hack writer who’s so oblivious he’s unable even to lecture a group of bookworms about “The Crisis of Faith”, even though that title sums up his situation perfectly.
Like a hero from the cheap Westerns he’s moderately famous for, Holly goes in search of Lime’s murderer without bothering to consider who might get hurt or even destroyed. The more involved he becomes, the more trouble Anna gets into (for the fake passport Lime created for her). It takes hours of discussion and piles of evidence to convince Holly that Harry Lime was a monster, selling diluted penicillin for an outrageous price, a practice which maims or kills the young children to whom it is administered. When he’s convinced, he’s fully convinced… until the next day. Holly’s a weathervane, unable to see Vienna, unable to see Anna, unable to grasp anything. Look at him stumbling through the ruins of Vienna, her wet cobblestone streets filled with abandoned cars, half her buildings blasted apart. Notice the bent old woman straining to push an abandoned Merry-Go-Round for her child, who sits atop the plastic horse looking bored. The old man selling balloons–to whom? We see this and are moved; Holly can’t see past the end of his nose. And yet we’re still moved.
Look at Holly there, leaning against a fence at the train station. He can’t save his girl from the forces of evil, from the lugubrious forces of bureaucracy, from the whims of her damned heart. “I could stand on my head and make all sorts of comic faces, and I wouldn’t stand a chance, would I?” he asks Anna. Of course not. For that’s Holly all over–a collection of parlor tricks, and when the shit hits the fan he’s bewildered and helpless. She loves an evil man, why can’t she love him? But Holly isn’t a good man or an evil man. Nothing he does in this film on his own works out; nothing he’s prompted to do does either. He gets his man, but at what cost? The reality is that Holly doesn’t even know himself.
In the end, virtually no one was saved. In the final shot, Alida Valli marches toward the camera with a melancholy determination, right past Cotten, as the leaves tumble slowly around her. The black market still operates, children will live and die, Anna will grieve forever, and Holly’s work is as meaningful as those dead leaves. Holly just watches her go, and does nothing. After all, there’s nothing he can do.
