Con-artist Harry targets an item of jewellery, but is he overlooking something more precious?

Starring Orson Welles as Harry Lime.

The films of Orson Welles, such as 'Citizen Kane', 'The Magnificent Ambersons' and 'Touch of Evil' guaranteed his place in the pantheon of silver-screen heroes.

In the celebrated 1949 film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel 'The Third Man', Harry Lime is introduce as one of cinema's most notorious anti-heroes. Sought in post-war Vienna by pulp writer Holly Martins [Joseph Cotton] and British Army Major Calloway [Trevor Howard], Lime manages to steal the show despite being absent for much of it!

This 1951-52 radio prequel to the film, 'The Lives of Harry Lime' earned Welles even more acclaim. His distinctive tones had already served him well as the radio voice of 'The Shadow' between 1937 and 1938, where he portrayed the crusader with distinctly questionable means of thwarting crime.

Stripped of the film cameras, the character of Harry Lime is not ameliorated for this radio outing. He's an out and out rogue. Lime made it to the airwaves thanks to another Harry - Harry Alan Towers, with whom Welles collaborated on 'The Black Museum'. Like its eponymous anti-hero, this series travelled widely, being syndicated across the USA and on Radio Luxembourg.

The music is by Anton Karas, the zither man.

Produced by Towers of London.

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in August 1951. Show less