THE THIRD MAN

Director:

Sir Carol was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949). According to the film critic Derek Malcolm, The Third Man is the “best film noir ever made out of Britain”.The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

Log Line:

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

Conflicts:

Impossible goal:

Holly martin is a friend to lime, and upon his reaching to Vienna he gets to know about the death of lime. On his funeral martin interacts with police officers only to learn bad about his friend. He couldn’t trust the bad about his friend and later he meet his friend lime’s girl friend Anna who tells him that lime was bad man. And all the state man are against lime. Later we see in the movie that martin is trying his level best to solve an already solved case and it looks unnecessary to do so.

We notice that martin starts his journey to identify the killer of lime but ended up killing lime.

Unlikely hero:

Holly martin contain a whole lot of personalities within himself, a fun loving person who manages to lighten up the situations, a writer of pulp western novels and a man with great temper. He always manages to come up with the personalities that we least expect at the least time, he sometimes makes fool of himself and also not to forget the most important part, his attachment with Anna. Falling in love with her at such situation is the most absurd thing one man could do. Also not only this we also notice that his feelings for Anna remains the same even after she confess to him about all the misdeeds of Lime and her love for him.

Invincible villain:

Have you ever heard that a victim is a villain? Well in this case lime is a victim for everyone specially for holly but as we proceed with the story we reveal many phases and finally coming to a point that lime, whom we considered to be the victim of a brutal act is himself a villain who have victimize two young children and many more with his illegal supply of pencilin.

Lime made it difficult for martin to resolve the case as he sends thugs after him to eye his every motion. This dreadful act of lime do not just end here but it continues when he meet martin on a Ferris wheel and threaten martin again to not to tell police about this.

Character analysis:

Back-story:

Harry martin is a small Western pulp novelist and writer of juvenile Western pulp stories. He was lining his regular hardworking life when his ‘boyhood’ friend asked him to help him out and offered him a job in Vienna. He left everything behind and packed his bag to leave for better opportunities.

Appearance:

A young man covering his head with a hat shaven face and sleek hair. Always suited and booted, neatness was his armor and he always dress dark. Long coats is his thing that only he can carry so well. Also his appearance was nowhere likely to be of a writer that to a pulp western but it so much gives us the hint of a detective that he soon become the moment he landed his feet on the grounds of Vienna.

Beliefs:

Martin firmly and clearly believes in justice, as we acknowledge in the film that first he tries his level best to bring justice to Lime, as he thought that he was murdered. Martin puts in all of his efforts to know the root cause of his friend murder only to later know that it is his very friend who has murdered more people than he could count. After encountering the truth instead of backing up his friend he goes again him to serve justice to innocent people. Although lime threaten martin to keep his mouth shut but martin being the ‘oh so courageous’ goes again Lime. And knotted a trap for Lime.

Mistakes:

Trust. Yes trust is something that took martin into all of this mess that was too elongated to be cleared easily. Martin firstly trusted Lime for a promising job and fled all the way to Vienna. Martin takes in everyone’s advice and let them play with his brain. Martin’s other and most foolish to be said mistake is to fall in love with Anna, knowing that she is his friend’s girlfriend and she still has feelings for him. Martin any good and love-able deed could do nothing to Anna’s heart as she has already lost it to a con master. In the end we get to know that Anna throughout the story knew everything but she stayed quite but still martin’s love for Anna didn’t even budge a little.

Act No 1:

When harry comes to attend his friend lain funeral, me meets two british army police officers  Sergeant Paine, a fan of Martins’ pulp novels; and his superior, Major Calloway, who says Lime was a criminal and suggests Martins leave town. Harry martin being a problem solver couldn’t accept that his very own friend who just offered his work could be a criminal. So when an official of the British occupying forces approaches Martins, requesting that he give a lecture and offering to pay for his lodging. Viewing this as an opportunity to clear his friend’s name, Martins decides to remain in Vienna.

Act no 2:

Act two for me is when calloway again advises Martins to leave Vienna, but Martins refuses and demands that Lime’s death be investigated.  Calloway reluctantly reveals lime’s heart wrenching activities to martin.  Calloway’s evidence convinces Martins. Disillusioned, he agrees to leave Vienna. Martins visits Anna to say good-bye and finds that she also knows of Lime’s misdeeds.  Upon leaving her flat, he notices someone watching from a dark doorway; a neighbor’s lit window briefly reveals the person to be Lime. His real quest is now change from finding the murderer of lime to getting lime arrested for his misdeeds.