You’ve seen the shot. Even if you haven't watched the full movie, you know the one. A cat rubs against a pair of expensive shoes in a dark doorway. A light flickers on from an upstairs window, cutting through the Viennese night, and there he is. Orson Welles is standing there with that smirk—half-angelic, half-predatory. It is perhaps the most famous character introduction in the history of cinema.
But here’s the kicker: by the time Harry Lime actually shows up on screen, the movie is more than halfway over.
Honestly, the way Orson Welles and The Third Man became such an inseparable pair is a bit of a miracle, mostly because Welles spent a good chunk of the production trying to avoid being in it at all. He was a man on the run from his own life, dodging creditors and unfinished projects, only to stumble into a role that would define him just as much as Citizen Kane.
The Myth of the "Shadow Director"
People love to say Orson Welles directed The Third Man. It’s a persistent rumor that just won’t die, probably because the movie looks so much like a "Wellesian" film. You’ve got the deep shadows, the weird "Dutch" camera angles where everything is tilted, and that overlapping dialogue.
But it’s just not true. Carol Reed directed the hell out of this movie.
Welles was actually a nightmare to get onto the set. He was supposed to be in Vienna for weeks, but he kept delaying. When he finally showed up, he looked at the damp, stinking sewers of Vienna and basically said, "No way." He complained about the smell and the risk of pneumonia. Most of those iconic sewer shots? They were filmed on a dry, clean studio set at Shepperton in London because Orson simply wouldn't go back down into the real muck.
The famous fingers reaching through the sewer grate? Those aren't even Orson’s fingers. They belong to the director, Carol Reed.
That Cuckoo Clock Speech: The Legend and the Lie
If there’s one thing everyone remembers, it's the Ferris wheel scene. Harry Lime and his old friend Holly Martins (played by a very tired-looking Joseph Cotten) are riding the Wiener Riesenrad, looking down at the people below.
Lime compares the people to "little dots." He asks if Martins would really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever in exchange for a few thousand pounds. It’s cold. It’s terrifying.
Then comes the speech.
"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
🔗 Read more: Tim Roth TV Shows: What Most People Get Wrong
Welles actually wrote that line himself. It wasn't in Graham Greene's script. Greene later admitted it was the best line in the whole film.
There's just one problem: it’s historically total nonsense. The Swiss didn't even invent the cuckoo clock—it came from the Black Forest in Germany. And Switzerland was actually a major military power for centuries. But Harry Lime doesn't care about facts. He’s a con man. He’s selling a vibe, a philosophy of cynical survival in a world that just finished blowing itself up.
Why the World Obsessed Over a Villain
It’s hard to overstate how much Harry Lime hit a nerve in 1949. Europe was a wreck. Vienna was divided into four zones—American, British, French, and Soviet—and the black market was the only thing that actually worked.
Lime wasn't just a "bad guy" in a suit. He was selling diluted penicillin. He was killing children for profit.
Yet, when Welles is on screen, you can’t look away. He makes evil look charming, which is way more dangerous than a villain who just snarls. He’s the friend you know is bad for you but you still take the call when he rings at 2:00 AM.
The movie works because it builds Lime up as a ghost. For an hour, everyone talks about him. They mourn him. They curse him. They fear him. By the time he steps out of that doorway, the audience is already obsessed. It’s a masterclass in suspense.
The Zither and the Atmosphere
You can't talk about The Third Man without mentioning that music.
Carol Reed found Anton Karas playing a zither in a Viennese wine cellar. He loved the sound so much he brought Karas back to London. The "Harry Lime Theme" became a global sensation. It’s jangly, almost cheerful, which creates this bizarre, unsettling contrast with the dark images on screen.
It feels like the city itself is nervous.
The cinematography by Robert Krasker (who won an Oscar for it) uses light like a weapon. Huge shadows stretch across cobblestone streets. Everything is wet. Everything is slanted. It captures that post-war feeling that the world has been knocked off its axis and might never get back to normal.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Ending
There’s a famous dispute about how the movie should end. The American producer, David O. Selznick, wanted a happy ending. He wanted Holly Martins and Anna (Harry’s grieving girlfriend) to reunite.
Carol Reed fought for the bleakest ending possible.
In the final shot, Holly stands by the side of a long, leaf-strewn road. Anna walks toward him from the distance. She walks, and walks, and walks... and then she just passes right by him without a word or a glance.
It’s brutal. It’s honest. It acknowledges that some betrayals are too big to fix with a hug.
How to Experience The Third Man Today
If you want to really "get" the impact of Orson Welles in this film, don't just watch it on a laptop. Turn the lights off. Get the loudest speakers you can for that zither music.
- Watch the British Cut: The original UK version is about 11 minutes longer and doesn't have the weird introductory narration added for American audiences.
- Listen to the Radio Prequel: After the movie was a hit, Welles starred in a radio series called The Lives of Harry Lime. It’s much lighter, almost a comedy, but it shows how much he loved the character.
- Visit Vienna (Virtually or Real): You can still take "Third Man" tours in Vienna. They’ll take you into the sewers and show you the exact doorway where Welles stood.
The movie is a reminder that you don't need a three-hour runtime to create a legend. Welles was on screen for less than 15 minutes, but he owned the entire century.
Next time you're watching a modern thriller and the villain feels a little too charming or the shadows feel a little too long, look for the ghost of Harry Lime. He's probably still standing in that doorway, waiting for the light to hit him.
For your next watch, try pairing this with Citizen Kane to see the two extremes of Welles' career: the man who wanted to control the world, and the man who was happy to watch it burn from a Ferris wheel.