Directed by Carol Reed. Written by Graham Greene, based on his novella.

Harry Lime

• What did you want me to do? Be reasonable. You didn't expect me to give myself up...'It's a far, far better thing that I do.' The old limelight. The fall of the curtain. Oh, Holly, you and I aren't heroes. The world doesn't make any heroes outside of your stories.

• Holly, I'd like to cut you in, old man. There's nobody left in Vienna I can really trust, and we've always done everything together. When you make up your mind, send me a message - I'll meet you any place, any time, and when we do meet old man, it's you I want to see, not the police. Remember that, won't ya? Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Remember what the fella said: In Italy for 30 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 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

Dialogue

Holly: I suppose it wouldn't interest you to know that Harry Lime was murdered? You're too busy. You haven't even bothered to get the complete evidence...And there was a third man there. I suppose that doesn't sound peculiar to you.

Calloway: I'm not interested in whether a racketeer like Lime was killed by his friends or by an accident. The only important thing is that he's dead. Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don't know what you're mixing in, get the next plane.

Holly: As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I'll get the next plane.

Calloway: Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.

Holly: Mind if I use that line in my next Western?

Anna: [about Harry] It's always bad around this time. He used to look in around six. I've been frightened. I've been alone, without friends and money. But I've never known anything like this. Please talk. Tell me about him.

Holly: He could fix anything.

Anna: What sort of things?

Holly: Oh, little things, how to put your temperature up before an exam, the best crib, how to avoid this and that.

Anna: He fixed my papers for me. He heard the Russians were repatriating people like me who came from Czechoslovakia. He knew the right person straight away for forging stamps.

Holly: When he was fourteen, he taught me the three card trick. That was growing up fast.

Anna: He never grew up. The world grew up round him, that's all - and buried him.

Holly: Anna, you'll fall in love again.

Anna: Don't you see I don't want to? I don't ever want to.

Popescu: Can I ask is Mr. Martins engaged in a new book?

Holly: Yes, it's called 'The Third Man.'

Popescu: A novel, Mr. Martins?

Holly: It's a murder story. I've just started it. It's based on fact.

Popescu: Are you a slow writer, Mr. Martins?

Holly: Not when I get interested.

Popescu: I'd say you were doing something pretty dangerous this time.

Holly: Yes?

Popescu: Mixing fact and fiction.

Holly: Should I make it all fact?

Popescu: Why no, Mr. Martins. I'd say stick to fiction, straight fiction.

Holly: I'm too far along with the book, Mr. Popescu.

Popescu: Haven't you ever scrapped a book, Mr. Martins?

Holly: Never.

Holly: I knew him for twenty years, at least I thought I knew him. Suppose he was laughing at fools like us all the time?

Anna: He liked to laugh.

Holly: Seventy pounds a tube. He wanted me to write for his great medical charity...Perhaps I could have raised the price to eighty pounds for him.

Anna: Oh please, for heaven's sakes, stop making him in your image. Harry was real. He wasn't just your friend and my lover, he was Harry.

Holly: Well, don't preach wisdom to me. You talk about him as if he had occasional bad manners. Oh, I don't know, I'm just a hack writer who drinks too much and falls in love with girls - you.

Anna: Me?

Holly: Don't be such a fool, of course.

Anna: If you'd rung me up and asked me were you fair or dark or had a moustache, I wouldn't have known.

Holly: I am leaving Vienna. I don't care whether Harry was murdered by Kurtz or Popescu or the third man. Whoever killed him, there was some sort of justice. Maybe I would have killed him myself.

Anna: A person doesn't change because you find out more.

Holly: Have you ever seen any of your victims?

Harry: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. [gestures to people far below] Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

Harry: Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.

Holly: You used to believe in God.

Harry: Oh, I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don't miss much here, poor devils. What do you believe in? Oh if you ever get Anna out of this mess, be kind to her. You'll find she's worth it.

Holly: Anna, don't you recognize a good turn when you see one?

Anna: You have seen Calloway. What are you two doing?

Holly: Well, they, they asked me to help take him. I'm helping.

Anna: Poor Harry.

Holly: Poor Harry? Poor Harry wouldn't even lift a finger to help you.

Anna: Oh, you've got your precious honesty and don't want anything else.

Holly: You still want him.

Anna: I don't want him anymore. I don't want to see him, hear him. But he's still a part of me, that's a fact. I couldn't do a thing to harm him.

Holly: Oh Anna, why do we always have to quarrel?

Anna: If you want to sell your services, I'm not willing to be the price. I loved him. You loved him. What good have we done him? Love! Look at yourself. They have a name for faces like that?

Taglines

• HUNTED...By a thousand men! Haunted...By a lovely girl!

• Hunted by men...Sought by WOMEN!

Cast

• Joseph Cotten - Holly Martins
• Alida Valli - Anna Schmidt
• Orson Welles - Harry Lime
• Trevor Howard - Major Calloway
• Paul Hörbiger - Porter
• Ernst Deutsch - 'Baron' Kurtz
• Erich Ponto - Dr. Winkel
• Siegfried Breuer - Popescu
• Hedwig Bleibtreu - Anna's Landlady
• Bernard Lee - Sergeant Paine
• Wilfrid Hyde-White - Crabbin