The next line spoken by Welles goes something like:

"If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped moving, would you really tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax."

Holly, played by Joseph Cotton, looks at Harry, Welles, with a mix of horror, disbelief, and probably bitter disappointment in his realization that his friend, a friend he loved, is a monster with no morals, no ethics, and no care in the world for anything other than profiting himself...or perhaps the sad discovery that he always was this and he just never clearly saw it until now. 

It's a great fucking movie scene. Brilliantly written, shot, and acted. You clearly know in the seen, or audiences once did when they watched it, who represents evil and is the bad guy. The choice the audience is presented with is so clear, and Holly makes his choice. He sees it clearly. 

It's great, in a movie. It is so potent and vibrant and hits you right where it needs to hit you...but you would not want to live the scene, right? Living it would be pure hell. Knowing that the choice was a whole bunch of people would die so that you might profit, that you would join the side that profits by the death of those women, children, innocents...you would not really want to make that choice for real, right?

Of course, Mr. Lime would not be offering just 20,000 pounds per dot, he would offer you something more significant in consideration of today's inflation...like, say, cheaper eggs. 

Welles as Harry Lime though is just much more charming and seductive, much more intelligent, a guy that you could see yourself wanting to be friends with, so you maybe could fall for his pitch away from your ethics, morals, and sense of right and wrong. He's much more seductive than an ogre that talks like a pimp in a 1970s porn film and whines like a bratty 12 year old when things don't go exactly how he wanted them.

You could fall for Harry Lime, but that's the movies, of course he is played by this great actor loaded with wit, charm, and intelligence swimming there behind his eyes. In the movies, they have to give you someone that you could really be seduced by, not a crude buffoon that talks like a teenager that just discovered a list of vulgarities and thinks it is funny to show off this new knowledge at the most inappropriate moments. 

How would they write this scene now?

Harry: How is Anna? Did you grab her by the pussy? I did, she let me do that. 

Holly: I, didn't grab her pussy, no. 

Harry: It's good, you should grab it. She will let you. She gives good head too. (Harry mimes a blowjob)

Holly: It was you, wasn't it, that turned her over to the Russians? 

Harry: Fuck you, Holly. Fuck everybody. Look down there.

Holly: What am I looking at?

Harry: Look at those people down there, we are up here. They are small and don't mean shit. Who cares if they die? If I can make the price of eggs go down a few pennies, we could kill them by the thousands, millions, whatever, fuck them!

Holly: You can get the price of eggs to go down?

Harry: Sure, for a few days, a week, maybe a month, then we can make them go back up, way up, much more expensive than they have ever been!

Holly (laughing): OK, fuck it, I'm in! Kill the fuckers!

Harry: Yes, fuck them! Let's go find Anna and grab her pussy!

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the old scene better, but who am I? I am nobody, and 75 million people like it as it reads above, just change the name Harry to Donny, and Holly to...Kash, Matt, Rick, whatever.

I have long loved that scene and the entire movie, I just did not think I would have to actually live it. I did go to Austria though and rode on that Ferris wheel, it is still there, believe it or not. I even quoted the lines when I was riding on it, which seemed to frighten this other guy on the ride that I don't think had ever seen The Third Man. He actually gripped the beam the way Holly does, maybe he was acting.