The Lives of Harry Lime
The Lives of Harry Lime asks what Orson Welles's charming racketeer was doing before The Third Man caught up with him. Each episode sends Harry Lime into another confidence scheme, romance or international hustle, softening the film's darker criminal into a weekly antihero who survives by talking faster than the people around him.
Program History
Prequel/spinoff adventure series centered on Harry Lime before his death in The Third Man.
The run breaks into several distinct periods: 52-program syndicated run (August 3, 1951 to July 25, 1952).
Names that turn up again and again in the surviving run include Anton Karas (performer and zither), Harry Alan Towers (producer and performer), Orson Welles (performer and writer), Tig Roe (director), Betty McDowell (performer), Graham Greene (creator), and Robert Rieti (performer).
Across its run, the surviving broadcasts are tied to WRVR-FM.
The stories often return to confidence schemes and swindles, international travel and cosmopolitan settings, art, jewels and valuable objects, romance and seduction, murder and homicide, and blackmail and coercion.
The show also sits in a wider radio history that includes The Third Man character becomes a radio prequel lead, Transcribed international syndication, Harry Lime softened for weekly radio, and Harry Lime material feeds Mr. Arkadin.
If you are following the same actors and creative circles, related programs worth opening next include Theatre Royal, Columbia Workshop, Lux Radio Theatre, The Fred Allen Show, and The Mercury Theatre on the Air.
All Episodes & Recordings
Search this program or browse in its validated catalog order.
Too Many Crooks
Harry is summoned to Budapest by banker Fekity, who says his bank is about to be robbed. Harry discovers an elaborate tunnel scheme involving his old acquaintance Lulu, the Coralli…
See Naples and Live
In prewar Naples, Harry plans to steal a valuable emerald locket worn by wealthy Mrs. Donaldson and cuts his dangerous partner Rubio out of the deal. Harry engineers an introduction…
Clay Pigeon
Harry returns to New York and becomes entangled with gangster Cato, who possesses incriminating photographs that can be used to blackmail Governor Hadley into granting valuable concessions. Harry appears to…
Ticket to Tangier
A personal advertisement lures broke Harry from Paris to Tangier, where Patsy admits she placed the notice and paid his fare. Her late husband was involved in heroin smuggling and…
Voodoo
Stranded in Haiti, Harry learns that the lost jeweled scepter of national hero Henri Christophe is still secretly guarded by local believers. He pressures his friends Fancy and Greek into…
Bohemian Star
Harry learns that jewel thieves are after the Bohemian Star, a huge diamond, and tries to get into the deal himself. The thieves kidnap and drug him, planning to keep…
Love Affair
Seeking an oil fortune in an oil-rich Saudi Arabian city, Harry meets nineteen-year-old American Marion and is quickly drawn into a romance while political and oil-concession intrigue swirls around him.…
Rogue’s Holiday
After a profitable swindle in New York, Harry sails for England and targets a wealthy woman he believes to be an aristocrat traveling with an extraordinarily valuable string of pearls.…
Work of Art
In wartime Buenos Aires, Harry becomes interested in an art collection belonging to a woman connected with a wealthy Nazi munitions manufacturer and decides to steal a supposed Rubens. He…
Operation Music Box
In London, Harry meets a woman searching antique dealers for three music boxes purchased during a specific period. He learns that one of them contains a hidden fortune in jewels…
Golden Fleece
Harry takes a job as captain of Nadia's yacht by using forged master's papers, despite having almost no nautical experience. With a real sailor covering for him, he discovers the…
Blue Bride
Operating from Bordeaux, Harry arranges a large counterfeit-currency deal while rival Baras closes in on him. To distract the opposition, Harry cultivates Baras's bride Sofia, while the endlessly helpful Professor…
Every Frame Has a Silver Lining
Harry follows a seemingly respectable family because a valuable picture in a silver frame appears to offer a profitable opportunity, only to discover that Helen and her supposed relatives are…
Mexican Hat Trick
A dying pickpocket's confession reveals that Vicente Coelio was wrongly accused of murder seventeen years earlier and that affidavits proving his innocence were hidden somewhere in León. Harry offers to…
Art Is Long and Lime Is Fleeting
Harry buys a worthless painting and plans to sell it to two wealthy Brazilian women as a valuable masterpiece. A suspicious rival keeps him under watch while Harry arranges a…
In Pursuit of a Ghost
In a Central American country on the edge of revolution, Harry is drawn into the hunt for a rebel leader who has escaped with about a million dollars. A beautiful…
Horse Play
Harry creates an elaborate fake betting club in Paris to swindle wealthy American Harris into wagering on a supposedly fixed horse race. The staged telephones, cashiers and track information convince…
3 Farthings for Your Thoughts
Harry joins Helen Barrett in a hunt for the £20,000 stolen by her imprisoned husband Bill. Bill has hidden the clue in three farthings and a letter referring to Beethoven;…
The Third Woman
During the war, Corporal Harry Lime is dressed as a civilian colonel and sent by Allied intelligence to learn why agent Brunell is withholding the true location of a German…
An Old Moorish Custom
In North Africa, Harry falls for De Rouge, granddaughter of wealthy Armand Deluge, while rumors of a Barbary-pirate treasure attract a gang led by Mario and the mysterious El Sikina.…
It’s a Knockout
Harry and several confederates lure wealthy Stan Pierce into a supposedly fixed boxing match in Havana. After convincing Pierce that the result is certain, they take his $45,000 wager and…
Two Is Company
In Sicily, Harry meets wealthy grocery heir Gus Schmidt, whose fiancée Emily Hickenlooper loves him but rejects the unromantic grocery life. Harry enlists notorious bandit Batzini in a staged kidnapping…
Cherchez La Gem
Harry becomes involved in a hunt for about $75,000 in hidden jewels in Honolulu, with a rival named Brissie willing to use a gun to get them first. Harry survives…
Hand of Glory
Trying to lie low in rural England, Harry accepts an invitation from Helen to stay with her twin uncles, retired scientists obsessed with discovering the secret of making gold. Their…
Double Double Cross
Harry falls for Louise and agrees to work with her and Pierre as an airborne courier, parachuting packages between France and England for a thousand pounds a trip. On a…
5000 Pengoes and a Kiss
In postwar Hungary, singer Helena Bana hires Harry to get her across the closed border for 5,000 pengoes and a kiss. Rival fixer Zama betrays the scheme to the police,…
Dark Enchantress
In Algiers, Harry is drawn into a blackmail scheme involving the glamorous Magda Polarese and the mysterious Charles Bonquera. Detective Mike Nolan finally exposes the central trick: Magda and Charles…
Earl on Troubled Waters
Harry joins Robinson in a scheme to move a large sum of money across the Channel and winds up carrying £29,000 while a troublesome boy named Ronald keeps noticing more…
Dead Candidate
Harry tries honest business by taking the Bazzo soft-drink concession in the tiny Mediterranean republic of Malini, only to be pulled into a thoroughly dishonest election. Local political bosses treat…
It’s in the Bag
Aboard the Orient Express, Harry talks a Greek traveler into buying a bundle of Yugoslav banknotes at a steep discount, then secretly tips border police that the man is carrying…
Hyacinth Patrol
During a stop near the Panama Canal, Harry befriends American sergeant Tiger Dolan and becomes entangled in suspicions about an officer secretly meeting an enemy contact. With help from Rita,…
Turnabout Is Foul Play
In Bern, Harry overhears German industrialist Hans Croft and a fixer discussing plans to obtain confidential Western European reconstruction information. Harry joins a counter-scheme involving official Bill Foster, who supplies…
Violets, Sweet Violets
In Marseille, Harry becomes involved with black-market operator Griffo and a warehouse packed with contraband, including weapons and aircraft parts. An elderly violet seller becomes an unwilling link in the…
Faith, Lime, and Charity
On a train to Agra, Harry meets a woman calling herself Mrs. Halley, who tells him that a mission orphanage has burned and wealthy Lady Edith might donate £5,000 to…
Pleasure Before Business
In Venice, Harry recruits experienced accomplice Joan Willoughby to help rob Count Delaverobia's valuable jewels. Joan gains the count's confidence and learns where the jewels are kept, but during the…
Fool’s Gold
Harry is recruited into a plan to hijack a valuable gold shipment in the Middle East and fly it to India for a huge black-market profit. He, Clancy and Singh…
Man of Mystery
Billionaire Gregory Arkadin hires Harry to investigate Arkadin's own past, claiming that he remembers nothing before waking in Zurich in 1927 with a large sum of money. Harry traces him…
The Painted Smile
On holiday in Sicily, Harry reunites with circus clown Antonio Vega, an old friend who secretly finances his daughter's education through emerald smuggling. Vega shows Harry the fortune he has…
Harry Joins the Circus
A photograph convinces Harry that fugitive Nazi official Hans Hessel may still be alive under a new identity, and the search leads him into a traveling circus. A young performer…
Suzie’s Cue
In Vienna, Harry teams with the broke Countess Suzie and her associate Carl to steal a wealthy baron's valuable necklace. Suzie supplies the safe key, Carl distracts the baron at…