Cue Zither music...

[J. Herzog]

>On Sat, 10 Jul 1999, Paul Mackin wrote:
>
>> Noticed in watching this WWII-era classic last evening how much talk there
>> was in it of buying and selling and the monetary value put on human life.

and Derek:

>Check out Orson Welles's character's comments in THE THIRD MAN (1949) if
>you want to see another movie with a lot of GR overlap in that regard. I
>always thought that there was something so very film noir (in the original
>40s and 50s sense, not the 60s and 70s neo-noir revival sense) about the
>whole book, but that point was really brought home to me when listening to
>Harry Lime's speech about the comparative value of Florentine economic
>tyrrany vs. 500 years of Swiss democracy (the sole product of value of
>which is, in his words, "the cuckoo clock"). I guess Graham Greene gets
>the credit for that riff, but it works so well coming out of the mouth
>of...oh yeah, the Kenosha Kid. Hmmm...nah, I won't start that shit again.

If you read the original screenplay, that speech is not included--according
to most sources Orson W. wrote it himself. The Kenosha Kid easily steals the
film with the charming monstrous cynicism of that bit (it's hard to imagine
the movie without it). OK, I promise not to bring up Ol' Orson again
(although he would have made a great Blicero on screen IMHO).

                                        J.