'The Third Man' is one of my all-time favorite movies. It was made in 1949, 6 years before I was born. It was written by Graham Greene, British author of novels and travelogue, short stories and essays that comprise a literary landscape well worth exploring. He was a movie buff too. Directed by Carol Reed, the film starred Orson Welles, Joe Cotten, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard. The film is placed in post-WWII Vienna and is about the military police trying to stamp out the black market for penicillin. The mood of the city is palpable in the wet cobblestones of its streets and alleys. There are some gorgeous shots of Miss Valli's face with traces of tears on her cheeks that would make any actress wish they were her. The beauty of love lost to death she expresses, its wistfulness, is magic.
The movie conveys existential truth. I'm especially thinking of the deep truth of the classcial Greek myth of Sisyphus, so eloquently essayed by Albert Camus. Over and over again, Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a hill. He can never get it quite to the top, he can never rest. This was punishment for hubris, deserved.
'The Third Man,' near its denouement, as the police are staked out to trap Harry Lime (Orson Welles), leader of the black market for penicillin, has a scene with a drunken old man selling balloons, trying to sell them to the police, begging. Trevor Howard finally gives in and buys one and the the old man is happy for a second, but then his facial expression changes to one of angst. He realizes, I think, that he still has many more to sell. This is the human condition, to which all are fated. We never make it quite to the top; never can rest. Why doesn't happiness last?
