Preliminary Research on "The Third Man" (1949)

I am going to focus my first entry on our research project on probably the most famous scene in "The Third Man"--the famous "cuckoo clock scene." In it, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) and Holly Martin (Joseph Cotten) meet on a ferris wheel to discuss the arrest of Anna, Lime's actress girlfriend, as part of Lime's own criminal racket. There are a couple very cool things about this scene:

1. The music. Lime threatens to kill Martin because of the latter's knowledge of his illegal activity, yet a delightfully syncopated guitar tune opens and closes the scene as Martin waits for Lime at the entrance to the wheel. Quite ironic.

2. Throughout the scene, Lime complains of indigestion and laments that antacids are nowhere to be found in occupied Austria. Perhaps his own internal suffering?

3. Lime makes several overt connections between his thinking and that of the times. As their compartment approaches its zenith on the wheel, Lime comments that the people below them resemble 'dots,' and teasingly wonders if Martin could truly resist the offer of £20,000 for the life of one of them. States don't treat people as individuals, Lime submits, so why should I? This kind of callously utilitarian thinking echoes the brutality and ruthlessness of not only the defeated Axis, but perhaps also the victors as well (Lime is a Brit, for instance, and his language suggests this kind of thinking ought to be universalized. Moreover, he pulls back from pushing Martin out the door laughingly, in a reference to the discrepancy between the actions and rhetoric of the Allies).

4. Finally, Lime's famous line at the end of the scene suggests, perversely, that things won't be so bad--Italy under the Borgias produced Michelangelo, Rafael, and Leonardo, while Switzerland's 500+ years of peace and brotherly love produced cuckoo clocks. There's something very twisted about the detachment and coldness this view conveys.