The One of Orson Well's most memorable film roles finds the legendary actor and director on screen for no more than 15 minutes,

and he doesn't enter the movie until late in the second act, but he makes the most of his limited screen time, and he gives an indelible performance.

The role is Harry Lyme, the unscrupulous black market crook of the third man.

Despite being downright despicable, he makes his money selling fake medicine to post-war

children's hospitals, Orson Wells makes Lyme so compelling and

charismatic that we want to see much more of him. Unfortunately, and

spoilers here for those of you who haven't seen the third man, which if you haven't, go watch it.

It's amazing.

Harry Lyme dies at the end of the movie.

But you can't keep a good bad guy down, and a few years after the release of the film

Wells recreated the role on radio in The Lives of Harry Lime, a syndicated prequel

series that followed Harry all over the world in new adventures.

The lives of Harry Line was produced by another Harry, Harry Allen Towers,

a producer of syndicated radio drama including The Black Museum, the Scotland Yard anthology show headlined by Orson Wells.

Both Wells and Towers were larger-than-life figures prone to self-promotion and

exaggeration so the behind-the-scenes history of the show is difficult to sort out.

Several of the series scripts are attributed to Wells. to he earned for the stories. Regardless of who wrote what and when, Wells was front and

center in the series, acting as both narrator and star. By that point in his

career, Orson Wells had hit the skids when it came to Hollywood,

and he was off in Europe on a self-imposed exile.

But he was still an incredibly polished and dynamic radio performer.

Wells is clearly having a ball in the show when you listen

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