(Orson Welles’ greatest role: the mysterious, charismatic Harry Lime in The Third Man, one of the top 10 films of the tweniieth century, written by Graham Greene and directed by Sir Carol Reed)
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I’m struck by the character differences at the ending of this signature movie (released, coincidentally, in my birth year BTW) which are made very clear by writer Greene and director Reed, to say the least. Spoiler alert begins….
In the end, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) gets his just deserts and yet the audience is sympathetic to his plight because he is charismatic, greatly outnumbered, and hunted like a rat. When his fingers pathetically try to lift the sewer grate unsuccessfully, you can palpably feel his awareness that there will be no escape this time. He does, though, deserve to be punished for his greed, corruption, and lack of feeling for others, especially the victims of his illegal penicillin trade. There is a poetic and moral justice that he asks for death from the man who was once his closest friend-turned-betrayer. At the same time, he remains the most attractive and good-humoured of all the characters, and much loved by the two closest to him–Holly and Anna. Harry Lime is the first significant modern anti-hero in 20th century movies.
Anna’s response to him is a little tempered when she learns of his racket, and yet she remains loyal and true to him, attending his funeral and walking by Holly afterward, rejecting him utterly for his treachery to Harry. She is a simpler, less complex character than Holly and seems oblivious to the serious harm and tragedy that Harry has caused, especially at the moment of truth when Harry enters the café.
And though it is true that Holly is the friend who betrays Harry, he does so for more moral reasons than Anna is capable of understanding and appreciating fully. It is Holly who bears the terrible responsibilities in the end of both betraying and killing Harry, the price being the loss of his once-close friend, his higher moral principles, Anna, and any remaining romanticism and innocence he once espoused and deeply believed in. Holly is the most conflicted of the three characters. He is also the most conscious of the three characters; he will have to bear his guilt alone, rejected in the final moment by Anna, the woman he loved and, ironically, tried hard to protect. There are and will be no just deserts for him as well as Anna who has lost her one true love.