The annotated shooting script for The Third Man, minus the ‘cuckoo clock’ speech

This speech, delivered by Orson Welles as cynical black market racketeer Harry Lime, is one of the most memorable in cinema history. But, as the film’s shooting script shows, it was not in Graham Greene’s original screenplay and was in fact improvised by Welles. 

As Orson Welles’s legend grew in the years after The Third Man, so did debate over the extent of his contribution, with some critics and biographers suggesting he’d had an outsize influence on the finished film, even directing his own scenes. But while Welles was not overly modest about his involvement (he told Peter Bogdanovich that he wrote his own part), he was also firm in asserting the artistry and full creative ownership of Carol Reed whom he described as a “wonderful director”.

A number of excellent books have since supported Welles’s comments on Reed and redressed this balance, demonstrating Reed’s ability to coax exactly what he needed from his performers, while recognising the hugely impactful contribution that Welles-as-actor made to the film. A close look at Reed’s own annotated shooting script gives us the chance to take a more detailed look at the evolution of this collaborative process, particularly in relation to the famous Prater ferris wheel sequence.

While the framework and much of the core dialogue is essentially the same, we can see how Welles’s cuckoo clock speech, as well as numerous small changes and additions, round out and create conflicting feelings towards Lime’s character, ultimately supporting the overall cynical worldview of Greene’s story.

Contrary to the written stage directions, Welles removes his glove clearly intending to shake Holly’s hand (still called ‘Rollo’ in this script). His gesture does get rejected, adding a fleeting hint of vulnerability to the character. Instead of the script’s “lovers”, he observes “kids used to ride this thing a lot in the old days”, immediately bringing to mind the children harmed by Lime’s black market activities. 

This sour note is compounded by Welles’s addition of repeated references to his indigestion (he certainly has reason to have an unsettled stomach), revealing the callous self-obsession masked by his charisma. The repeated shifts, from quietly menacing to boyishly charming, construct an ongoing tension throughout the scene, mirroring Holly’s confused loyalties. The cuckoo clock speech completes this process – instead of ending on a threat (“If we meet again, Rollo, it’s you I want to see, and not the police”) Lime signs off with a compelling and bravura flourish.

Harry Lime emerges as a flawed, complex, hypocritical charmer and, despite limited screentime, dominates the film. Indeed, he would grow beyond the bounds initially intended by his creator Graham Greene when, in 1951, Welles reprised his role for a 52-episode radio prequel, The Adventures of Harry Lime.

Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.