The first few scenes of the film show Holly Martins flying to Vienna. It is more than your average 'flying shot' for it reveals a certain amount of information about both the passenger and his destination. Vienna was not, as it is today, a city relatively free from immigration restrictions. The first scene establishes this, as it does Martins' nationality: He is a Canadian. The vice-consul who issues his visa reminds him that Vienna is an occupied city and to be 'extremely careful to observe all official regulations.' We learn also the purpose of Martins' visit, to join a friend of his, 'named Lime... Harry Lime.'
Animations superimposed over an aerial shot of Vienna remind us quite how 'occupied' the city is: the English, the French, the Americans and the Russians all knit into a 'crazy patchwork' of four zones that lie around the central international zone or 'Inner Stadt'. Martins lands in this strange city to be met by ... no one. That is, no one except the awkward conglomerate of four soldiers each representing one of the four powers that occupy the city. Harry Lime has let him down. Martins enquires at the Information desk but there is no message waiting for him from his friend. He waits hopefully but in vain.
Imagine the scene: you arrive after a long and uncomfortable flight, only to find that there is nobody waiting to meet you. You find yourself in a strange city, all the stranger for its quartet of occupant powers and your lack of money. This is by no means a reassuring situation. Then imagine this: you make it to your friend's address, your only contact among the bomb-shelters and ruins, and find that he is dead; that his new home is in a wooden box, six feet below earth so hard that electric drills are required to break it open.
It is worth looking to the book here for it provides a fuller account of Martins' relationship with Harry Lime:
'How quickly one becomes aware of silence even in so silent a city as Vienna with the snow steadily settling. Martins hadn't reached the second floor before he was convinced that he wouldn't find Lime there, but the silence was so deeper than just absence - it was as if he would not find Lime anywhere in Vienna... that Lime, the Lime that he had hero-worshipped now for twenty years, sine the first meeting in a grim school corridor with a cracked bell ringing for prayers was gone. Martins wasn't entirely wrong.' (11ff.)
Before Martins leaves for the cemetery, the porter of Lime's apartment block gives him some very important information about Lime's death:
'... An accident... saw it myself... on his own doorstep... bang, bowled over like a rabbit. Killed at once... ' [9]
There is not a large gathering around the grave: merely the priest, two men, and a girl. At a distance, 'more like an observer than a participant' [10] stands a man whom we soon come to know as Major Calloway. The ceremony is fairly perfunctory, the priest rapidly mumbling the words of the Requiem, the two men rather awkwardly performing their duty as mourners and the girl sobbing quietly. Thus, Martins' hero is laid to rest.
Calloway, whose perspective on Lime is somewhat different, relates that he was surprised to see Martins cry:
'He didn't look like a man who wept, nor was Lime the kind of man whom I thought likely to have mourners, genuine mourners with genuine tears.' (15)
It was perhaps this that prompted Calloway to 'interview' Martins. A file needs to portray its subject from as many angles possible to give a complete picture. It aspires to the Platonic ideal: in this case, the subject is not a couch but Harry Lime; the observer must see all possible angles of Lime's image to fully conceive the 'ideal', the quintessential Lime:
'It was odd how like the Lime he knew was to the Lime that I knew: it was only that he looked at Lime's image from a different angle or in a different light.' (19)
The interview ends in violence, or attempted violence, on Martins' part at any rate. He is offended by the image that Calloway paints of his friend Lime. Who can blame him? He has had a rough day and, to top it all, is told that his old friend, the 'best friend I ever had' was a crook, a murderer even, 'about the worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city' [14].
Martins makes a promise to Calloway, or 'Callaghan' as he insists on calling him: 'When I've finished with you - you'll leave Vienna, you'll look so silly.' The idea is seemingly ridiculous, a fantasy out of one of the 'cheap novelettes' he writes. Paine, Calloway's right-hand man, comments 'I like a good Western' [15].
And so, the Western begins, outlaw versus sheriff, good versus bad. Martins needs money to stay in Vienna. God is on the side of good and sends his angel, Crabbit, a British officer from 'C.R.S. of G.H.Q., you know... Cultural Re-education Section.' Crabbit hears from Paine that Martins is a writer and asks him to give a lecture on the 'contemporary novel', a subject upon which Graham Greene would no doubt have something to say. Martins is a little less well qualified in this area but accepts for other reasons. He has no money and would be forced to leave Vienna the following day unless he is able to get hold of some. He takes the opportunity but it is obvious that he is driven by other motives than the chance to lecture on the contemporary novel:
'Ever heard of a book of mine called the Lone Rider of Santa Fe? ... The lone rider has his best friend shot unlawfully by a sheriff. The story is how this lone rider hunted that sheriff down ... 'I'm gunning just the same way for your Colonel Callaghan' [16]
The hunt starts with Baron von Kurtz, one of the mourners at the graveside and a friend of Harry Lime, who rings Martins at his hotel and arranges to meet him. How Kurtz knew where Martins was staying is not explained. He evidently followed him or had him followed. Such is the normal level of underground activity that haunts Vienna during this period.
Martins meets Kurtz, a character who would inspire little trust in most men. In the book, Martins describes his first impressions:
'What I disliked about him at first sight was his toupee. It was one of those obvious toupees - flat and yellow with the hair cut straight at the back and not fitting close. There must be something phoney about a man who won't accept baldness gracefully. He had one of these faces too where the lines have been put in carefully, like a make-up, in the right places - to express charm, whimsicality, lines at the corners of the eyes. He was made up to appeal to romantic schoolgirls.' (32)
There is, as always, more material in the book than in the script but in the latter is the distilled essence of the Kurtz character. He is obsequious, complimenting Martins on The Lone Rider of Santa Fe, a book that he has evidently never read and, given the circumstances, might do well to read. His clothes, his accent, his general demeanour might pass for those of an Austrian aristocrat fallen on hard times but it is too self-consciously styled to be convincing. In the stage directions, Greene notes that, 'His English accent is really too good. A man ought not to speak a foreign language so well.' This sums up Kurtz and his façade in a typically Greene way.
Martins can be seen adopting the character of his Lone Rider: He is purposeful and direct. There is necessarily an element of romanticism in his new role but it is certainly not akin to that of a schoolgirl. It is of no surprise that he does not exactly warm to Kurtz. In sharp contrast with Kurtz, he is not pretentious. This is particularly clear when they first meet:
'KURTZ: It's wonderful how you keep up the tension
MARTINS: Tension?
KURTZ: Suspense. At the end of every chapter, you are left guessing... what he'll be up to next.
MARTINS: So you were a friend of Harry's? '[17]
It is almost as if Martins cannot believe that this man could be a friend of the Harry he knew. Nevertheless, he is on mission and information often comes from strange sources in cheap novelettes. He questions him about Calloway's accusations that Harry was running a racket and receives evasive replies:
'Everyone in Vienna is - we all sell cigarettes and that kind of thing. Why, I have done things that would have been unthinkable before the war. Once when I was hard up, I sold some tyres on the black market... [The police] get rather absurd ideas sometimes... '
Martins asks Kurtz to show him how Harry died. They go to the site of the accident and Kurtz takes him through it step-by-step. Martins notices a vital discrepancy between Kurtz's account and that of the porter: The porter said that Harry died instantly. Kurtz claims that he did not and, in his typically obsequious fashion, that 'even at the end, his thoughts were of [Martins]'.
In the book, Martins suspects at this point that either the police had him killed or the racketeers had him killed. He mentions this to Kurtz, almost as an accusation and he sees that this disturbs Kurtz. In the film, Martins does not seem to have reached any such conclusions and, if he has, he doesn't mention them. However, he has two leads: Anna Schmidt, the girl who was at the funeral and the name of the theatre at which she works; and the address of Dr. Winkel, Harry's doctor. The only evidence he has is that discrepancy between the porter's and Kurtz's account of Harry's death. Just as in The Lone Rider, Greene keeps up the tension, suspense, keeps us guessing.
Martins follows his leads. First he goes to the Josefstadt theatre to find Anna Schimdt. He describes her:
'She wasn't a beautiful face... Just an honest face; dark hair and eyes which in that light looked brown; a wide forehead, a large mouth which didn't try to charm.' (38)
She is very different to Kurtz. She is an actor only on stage; by day, her face is not made up '- to express charm, whimsicality, lines at the corners of the eyes'. Martins explains, in the book, that he recognised her instantly as a friend, someone that he could be at ease with because 'you know you will never, never will you be in danger.'
Martins asks Anna about Harry and his death. She gives him the Kurtz account - Kurtz present; with him, Popescu; Harry knocked down, and his own doctor, Dr. Winkel - who happened to be passing - on the scene within minutes. She, too, was told that Harry did not die immediately and that in his dying moments his thoughts were of her. Harry was, it seems, most thoughtful in the moments before he died. Martins does not find this difficult to believe. It is when Anna mentions that the driver of the truck that knocked Harry down was none other than Harry's driver that Martins' suspicions are aroused:
'I don't get this. Kurtz and - his own driver knocking him down - not a single stranger.'[23]
In the stage directions, we are told that 'MARTINS up to this point has never thought of murder'. He remembers that the porter was a witness and he goes, with Anna, to see him. The porter repeats his story: Harry died immediately. With him were three men. Kurtz, Popescu and Dr. Winkel. No, Dr. Winkel arrived later. There were three men and then Dr. Winkel arrived. So, there are two discrepancies between his account and Kurtz's account: the time of death and the Third Man.
Martins tries to convince the porter to take his evidence to the police. The porter, until now very helpful, clams up, refuses to speak about it any further and asks Martins and Anna to leave. They return to Anna's house to find that she has visitors - the police are in the process of searching her room. This encounter of Martins with Calloway demonstrates the high romanticism of Martins' mission. Calloway is going about his business - investigating Anna, who he suspects rightly of having forged paper from
Harry. He is not interested in Martins' claim that Harry was murdered. He knows more than Martins about Harry's racket:
'I'm not interested in whether a racketeer like Lime was killed by his friends or in an accident. The only important thing is that he's dead.... Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.' [37]
Not very tactful - indeed, harsh for Martins, harsher still for Anna - but realistic. Anna takes less offence than Martins. She, too, is realistic and knew that Harry was probably mixed up in something nasty. She even admits that her papers are forged. It is Martins who will not accept the reality of the situation. He is very much a lone rider, spurred on by his belief in a rather naïve childhood dream - of the Harry Lime that took him under his wing at school, the Harry Lime who was 'the best friend he ever had'. He is a long way from the reality of post-war Vienna, the desolate bomb shelters; from Harry the racketeer, and - Calloway is right - from the reality of death. Martins follows the second lead: Dr. Winkel. Dr. Winkel is a very stiff, starched, precise man. He is specialist in religious 'objets d'art' - crucifixes, saints' bones, relics, etc. But, at least with Martins or a friend of Harry, he is not false like Kurtz. He admits that the saints' bones are no more than chicken bones. He is also unlike Kurtz in that he is very careful in what he says. In fact, he says almost nothing. He confirms Kurtz's story that there were only two men with Lime when he arrived. He is too cautious to venture any real opinion concerning the time of death or Lime's level of consciousness directly after the accident. All he says is 'maybe - I don't know, I wasn't there'.
This scene gives Martins no information but provides, perhaps an indirect comment on the moral code that Harry and perhaps the others subscribe to. Martins asks him to explain why the Jansenist crucifix depicts Christ with his arms above the head. He replies:
'Because he died, in their view, only for the elect.'[39]
Vienna in this period was not an easy city to survive in. Not only were there the political problems posed by occupation by not one but four powers, but also the usual post-war scarcity of supplies, depressed economy, etc. Everyone, as Kurtz says, is involved in some kind of black market dealing, whether it is cigarettes, tea, tyres, whatever. The kind of racket that Harry and his accomplices run is different. At the bottom of it, as Calloway say, is death. To Jansenists, the non-Jansenists - the 'non- elect' - were as mugs are to racketeers like Harry. This idea is expanded later.
What follows is a scene between Calloway and Anna. Her papers are forged and the Russians have claim to what their officer, Brodsky, refers to as 'the body'. This is but a hint of the political wrangling that goes on between the international military police in Vienna at this time. Greene is rather more explicit in the book. It is not worth explaining here because it is not central to the plot - it was cut from the script, presumably, for that very reason - but it is worth reading in order to understand the background to the plot (see page 99 onwards). Suffice it to say that Russian-Allies relationships were somewhat tense, a conflict in which Anna is embroiled because she is a Russian 'body' living in the British zone.
Back to the plot: Calloway interviews Anna. What his suspicions are is not clear. Perhaps he thought that she was an active member in Harry's racket. He asks her whether she was 'intimate' with Lime, to which she replies that she loved him. Probably more likely, he suspects that she might provide a link to the missing Joseph Harbin. This would give Anna a certain value as a 'body' to Calloway and might explain why she is not immediately turned over to the Russians.
Martins meets Anna as she leaves Calloway's office. They go to the Casanova club. There, Martins bumps into Crabbit who reminds him of the official reason for his visit - his talk on the modern novel. More interestingly, they find Kurtz. He is playing the violin. He is somewhat embarrassed that Anna has seen him in this capacity. He feels it necessary to excuse himself - 'You've found out my little secret. A man must live'.