THE THIRD MAN

*

A classic thriller with one of Orson Wells' most memorable performances. In one scene, Harry Lime (Wells) meets up with his old friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten). Author/screenwriter Graham Greene has said that Wells wrote the following lines:

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful.

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias

they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed,

but they produced Michelangelo,

Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance.

In Switzerland they had brotherly love -

they had 500 years of democracy and peace,

and what did that produce?

The cuckoo clock."

Cool.