Lime isn’t the protagonist, though. That role is filled by Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), the American Western writer and childhood friend of Harry’s who comes to Vienna at Harry’s invitation and finds he’s just in time for Harry’s funeral. The obstreperous Holly, who has a tendency to behave like an adolescent, insists that that the tales of his friend’s demise in an auto accident don’t add up, and he generally makes himself a nuisance to the British inspector on the case (Trevor Howard) when he refuses to shut up and go home. (Anna, who was Harry’s girl, is the other reason he sticks around.) At the core of the movie is Holly’s belated coming of age. In the drawing of the friendship between Holly and Harry, Greene seems to have been inspired by the David-Steerforth relationship in David Copperfield, and if that is indeed the case, Greene certainly does Dickens justice. You won’t want to miss the chance to see The Third Man on a big screen, where the beauties of Robert Krasker’s expressionist lighting and the intricacies of Reed’s staging are on magnificent display
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