Graham Greene The Third Man

About The Third Man

Graham Greene's The Third Man (1950) began as a novella written as a treatment before the screenplay for Carol Reed's 1949 film. Set in post-war Vienna, divided among the four Allied powers and full of penicillin rackets and black markets, it follows the pulp western writer Holly Martins, who arrives to join his friend Harry Lime and finds him apparently dead. His investigation reveals a man he never knew, operating in a world beyond the simple morality of the westerns Holly writes.