Why Does Anyone Like Harry Lime?

[packbat]

This post consists almost entirely of spoilers for 1949 British noir movie The Third Man.

Also, we don't have an answer to the question. Suggestions welcome.

Content warnings for general murderousness (including of children), car accident, and medical stuff.

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Holly Martins, a writer of westerns, arrives in post-WWII Vienna upon the invitation of his childhood friend, Harry Lime, who offered him a job. He arrives just in time to end up attending Harry's funeral. According to official accounts, Harry Lime was struck by a truck after stepping out into the street, two friends moved his body to the curb, and he soon after died. Also according to official accounts, Harry Lime was a racketeer and murderer. Holly doesn't believe it, and after finding out that the porter at the building saw Harry die instantly and three men carrying the body to the curb, Holly decides to remain in Vienna to solve the murder of his friend.

As it turns out, the official accounts are wrong about the events of Harry's death. Harry was the third man. The man struck by the truck and buried in Harry's grave was his accomplice, a medical orderly who'd been stealing penicillin that Harry would then water down and sell, enriching himself and killing the people who got it. Including children. As it turns out, the official accounts were right about Harry Lime's character.

Holly ends up speaking to Harry on a merry-go-round ferris wheel/big wheel, confronting him about his penicillin racket. Harry gives a thoroughly specious speech about how it's simply natural to kill people you don't know for your own enrichment. And remarks on how he could kill Holly to hide the last piece of evidence against him. If he so chose.

Holly informs him that the police dug up his (Harry's) grave and found the medical orderly. Harry considers this, then laughs off the idea that he ever planned to murder Holly and continues spinning nonsense about how silly it is to be unwilling to kill people.

The movie's handling of its one major female character and the relationships of its male characters to her is terrible, as happens with too many noir stories, but otherwise it handles the emotions of its tale well. It depicts well the turmoil of discovering someone you were loyal to, who stuck up for you and helped you, is a murderer, and the painful necessity of acting to stop them.

I understand why Holly Martins liked Harry Lime - still had affection for him, to the end.

I don't understand why anyone in the audience of the film does.

It feels like a moral necessity to us, when creating a story starring a villain, to make that a story that frames that villain appropriately: as a villain. This is especially important when the villain is charismatic, as Harry Lime is. And The Third Man does frame its villain appropriately: Harry doesn't even have a chance to speak before Holly already knows that he is a murderer many times over - a murderer by his penicillin racket and a murderer directly of individuals. And when he does speak, Harry Lime demonstrates yet again that he is a murderer, with his elaborate and mendacious sophistry in defense of murder and his obvious contemplation of the potential to murder his old friend Holly Martins in the merry-go-round. If you wanted to feature a charismatic villain in your movie, we would have told you to do it like this: make him obviously evil before he even gets a chance to defend himself, and never shy away from recognizing it, acknowledging it, and holding up opposition to him as right and appropriate.

And it didn't work. Audiences liked Harry Lime anyway. People comment on YouTube videos about how they quote Harry Lime's lie about Switzerland, a country with a history as wracked with war and as populated with artists and theorists as most any other region. An entire radio series was produced that downplayed Harry Lime's villainy while populating his past before the movie with adventures and exploits - fifty-two episodes. A murderer of children.

Why? Why does anyone like Harry Lime? I don't know.