PunkAssBlog.com

Like most noir thrillers, The Third Man rewards multiple viewings. My first time through, solving the mystery of Harry Lime and his supposed demise primarily occupied my attention. During my second viewing, I was drawn to Carol Reed’s manipulations of the shellshocked Viennese streets and tunnels, (Alida) Valli’s nuanced performance, the film’s patient revelation of Major Calloway as a savvy force for good, etcetera. My third experience hit me over the head with what should’ve been an obvious fact: Holly Martins isn’t just flawed — he sucks. Holly’s the ultimate nice guy, perhaps the best example captured on celluloid.

After Holly arrives in Vienna desperate to find work with school chum Harry Lime, he learns Harry was hit by a truck and killed. After attending Lime’s funeral, Holly is offered a ride by Major Calloway. They stop for a drink, and Holly reveals details about his schoolboy friendship with Lime, including the confession that Holly was “never so lonesome in my life till [Harry] showed up.” Those wary of the nice guys will recognize this quality of needing someone else to define his life. Left to his own devices, Holly couldn’t make his own fun. He needed Harry to do it for him.

Calloway reveals to Holly that Lime was mixed up in racketeering and possibly murder. This deeply offends Holly, who defiantly promises to right this injustice and blusters to Calloway, “when I’ve finished with you, you’ll leave Vienna, you’ll look so silly.”

Holly meets with Baron Kurtz, one of Lime’s closest friends, who does his best to discourage Holly from his pursuit of justice, and suggests to him that “it won’t do Harry any good. You’d do better to think of yourself.” In truth, this is exactly what Holly’s doing. He considers his desire to clear Lime’s name a noble gesture of friendship, but Holly clearly derives much of his self-esteem from having earned the friendship of such a larger-than-life chap. Lime’s perch on the pedestal is essential to Holly’s own pride, and he will do anything to defend it.

Obviously, the use of the pedestal is a classic nice guy maneuver. Like the guys who obsess over a girl/woman they’ve artificially idealized as the perfect girlfriend, Holly subconsciously needs to bask in the reflective glow of the company he keeps. He wants a perfect best friend on his arm as badly as a nice guy desires his One True.

In fact, Holly’s so caught up in restoring the myth of his trophy friend he doesn’t even think of the possibility of murder until Lime’s former girlfriend, Anna, confronts him with the details and wonders aloud about it. Anna’s entrance presents Holly with a new object of obsession, one he doggedly pursues in nice guy fashion.

Fired up over an even bigger noble cause (the possibility of murrrderrr), Holly returns to Lime’s residence with Anna to question the porter who initially informed Holly of Lime’s death. Naturally, in the uncertain post-war climate, native Viennese were better off getting mixed up in as little trouble as possible. After the porter says he saw 3 men carry Lime’s body across the street, Holly flips his lid. Baron Kurtz claimed only 2 men did this, and Holly chastises the porter for not coming forward with this information. The porter tries to explain that these are dangerous times, but Holly retorts, “suppose I take your evidence to the police?” Holly threatens and bullies for his own narrow righteous cause, completely oblivious to the needs of others. This “me me me” attitude in the guise of justice is all part of Holly’s nice guy nature.

Later, Holly’s noble blustering causes him to reveal the porter as the source of his evidence to the very people he suspects of Harry’s murder. Unsurprisingly, the porter ends up dead. How nice of Holly.

Like any nice guy who finds a damsel in distress, Holly is helpless against his attraction to Anna. First, though, his chat with her reveals the depths of Holly’s delusions regarding his friend. After Anna asks him to tell her about Lime, Holly confesses all of the following:
“Oh, we didn’t make much sense. Drank too much. Once he tried to steal my girl.”
“I suppose so - he could fix anything. [...] Oh, little things. How to put your temperature up before an exam…the best cribs. How to avoid this and that.”
“When he was fourteen, he taught me the three card trick. That’s growing up fast.”

If you had a friend who tried to steal your girl, knew every cheat in the book, and mastered deceit via cards by age fourteen, would you really find the notion that he fell into a life of crime that impossible? Nice guy pedestals don’t crack easily, apparently.

Holly doesn’t notice that, though, because he’s busy building one for Anna. Despite her boyfriend dying only the other day, and despite her obvious love for the man, Holly begins with the passive aggressive nice guy mating ritual, weighting the air with hints like “you’ll fall in love again.” Already, you can sense his quest to clear Harry’s name is becoming a way to impress this female prize, a former companion of Holly’s alpha male now opportunistically available for him.

Despite her protestation that she doesn’t ever want to fall in love again, Holly ups the ante:
Holly: “Come on out and have a drink.”
Anna: “Why did you say that?”
Holly: “Seemed like a good idea.”
Anna: “It’s just what he used to say.”
Holly: “Well, I didn’t learn that from him.”
I call BS. Holly wouldn’t accidentally stumble across exactly the same date-request phrase as his male idol. He has no idea just how much he has cribbed his style from his friend. Further, what makes this request seem like a “good idea?” Anna clearly mourns Lime, makes no bones about it, and has no interest in men right now. But the typical nice guy sees only the chance to be someone’s awesome boyfriend.

When she tries to deflect Holly by reminding him that they should go to the porter before its too late (unaware he is already dead), his full nice guy regalia is revealed: “What’s the hurry? Can’t we talk quietly for a couple of minutes?” A few minutes ago, Holly was obsessed with finding Lime’s murderers and clearing his name. Now all he wants to do is hit on his dead friend’s girl.

Anna repeatedly indicated she did not wish to pursue this fool’s quest with Holly; that she suggested they go see the porter was a huge sign she wants to redirect Holly from herself back to Harry. No dice. She even calls him Harry accidentally, but he blows it off. It doesn’t register with him how much she still loves Lime because Holly’s already decided he’s the fellow for her.

Eventually, Harry learns from Calloway that Lime was indeed a racketeer, and the worst kind. He stole penicillin, diluted it to the point of ineffectiveness, and resold it. Ill children were killed and/or severely harmed by Lime’s crimes, and the man who stole the penicillin has suddenly gone missing.

Holly is devastated. Now drunk, he pops in to cry on the shoulder of the woman he was supposedly helping. Anna calls Holly on his pedestal problem: “Oh, please, for heaven’s sake. Stop making him in your image. Harry was real.”

However, for Holly, the fall of Lime isn’t all bad. It also creates a paradigm shift in his pursuit of Anna. No longer is she simply the damsel in distress, the widowed prize of his alpha male. Now she has the Bad Boyfriend Syndrome. As perfect as she is (despite his barely knowing her), she’s been dating a louse, and good guy Holly Martins believes he’s just the right man to fix her up.

In this new light, Holly makes his fumbled play for her: “I don’t know - I’m just a hack writer who drinks too much - and falls in love with girls. You…” Anna makes it _as clear as possible_ she doesn’t have any feelings for him. He barely registers on her radar: “If you’d rung me up and asked me if you were fair or dark - or had a moustache. I wouldn’t have known.” Given that she has lost her love and now faces the prospect of being shipped back to the Russians after her forged papers were discovered, of course Holly Martins wouldn’t be the foremost thing on her mind. The only person incapable of picking up on that is Holly.

Unlike most of his kind, Holly gets to act out the juvenile fantasy of confronting the Bad Boyfriend. When he discovers Harry’s alive (accidentally, as with all of Martin’s detective successes), he demands a meeting in which he spouts to Lime, “you don’t care anything at all about Anna, do you?” For Holly, his caring for Anna trumps all else, including how she feels.

Faced with the inescapable truth of Lime’s evil, Holly submits to Major Calloway and agrees to set up Lime if Calloway will help Anna avoid the Russian authorities. This act seems noble, but if Holly had been paying attention at all, he’d know turning in Lime would be the last thing Anna would ever want. He thinks only of what he wants, like a true nice guy.

After the agreement is struck, Holly goes to see Anna off on her train from the shadows. Ostensibly, he doesn’t intend to be seen by her, but he makes a rather conspicuous saunter to the station bar and sits in the only well-lit space in view of her cabin. Perhaps Holly wants to be seen so Anna will rush out in gratitude and take him with her.

Sure enough, she does see him, but she’s hardly grateful for his help given the cost. He gives her ol’ I-know-what’s-best-for-you routine so common amongst the nice-ies: “Anna, don’t you recognize a good turn when you see one.”

Anna and Holly argue:
Holly: “Poor Harry?! He 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 any more. I don’t want to see him or hear him, but he is still part of me, that’s a fact. I couldn’t do a thing to harm him.”

Translation:
Holly: “Why are you still into that Bad Boyfriend? He totally sucks!”
Anna: “You self-absorbed prick. Bite me.”
Holly: “Wahh! I can’t believe you love him and not me when I am, like, soooo good to you!”
Anna: “Grow up and learn about real love, fool.”

Somehow, Holly finds the stones to respond, “Oh, Anna, why do we always have to quarrel?” He romanticizes their bickering as part of a real relationship. Classic case, once again.

After she refuses to leave and turns up to stop the set-up, Anna completes her judgment of Holly as a nice guy with this sarcastic assault: “Honest, sensible, sober, harmless Holly Martins…Holly, what a silly name… You must feel very proud to be a police informer.”

After Lime escapes the trap, a thrilling sewer chase ensues, cuminating in Lime taking a bullet to the back. As he tries desperately to climb a set of stairs, Holly grabs a pistol and pursues him. Lime is already on the fast track to the big sleep, but Holly still can’t bring himself to actually finish off his alpha-male friend/enemy until Lime consents with a nod. That permission allows Holly to live the dream and kill the Bad Boyfriend… even though he still couldn’t do it without Lime’s say-so.

We’re treated to another funeral for Lime, this time the real deal. And as before, Anna glumly walks away from the proceedings. Has Holly learned his lesson? Of course not! He jumps out of Major Calloway’s jeep and awaits her with a jaunty smile and adventurous eyes, sure she’ll come with him now that the Bad Boyfriend has been eliminated.

And Anna walks right past him.

To the last frame of the film, Holly Martins remains oblivious to her pain, much of it his fault by the end, and he fails to grasp what might be required for real love to blossom between two people.

How archetypically “nice” was Holly Martins? Let’s run down his nice guy checklist:
Sees himself as a noble good guy? Check.
Puts people around him on pedestals? Check.
Desires their company because it reflects well on him? Check.
Falls totally in love with a woman he barely knows? Check.
Doesn’t stop to understand a thing about her? Check.
Pursues her without regard to her feelings? Check.
Doesn’t actually do anything substantive to cultivate her feelings? Check.
Obliviously acts in ways that actually hurt her or her feelings? Check.
Pretends like they’re in some kind of pseudo-relationship anyway? Check.
Chastises her for her taste in men? Check.
Is remarkably and stubbornly self-absorbed? Check.
Is secretly filled with self-loathing? Check.

We may never find a more iconic case study of the nice guy than Holly Martins. In fact, maybe we should call them all hollys or hollies. It is, after all, a silly name.