Word: alida
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Girls' Show" (Christa Donner, Alida Walsh and others...
...same bomb-pocked streets? Maybe like the postwar Vienna of "The Third Man" (1950). Written by Graham Greene, lensed by the great Carol Reed (the just-deceased Oliver's uncle), and peopled with a pitch-perfect cast of Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard and a ravishing, gut-wrenching Alida Valli as the bad guy's girlfriend, this is quite simply one of the five best movies ever made, no taste-accounting necessary. Don't expect Kosovo to be as stylish, but the amoral flush of fresh peace (and fresh chaos) will no doubt be just as potent in Pristina...
...suddenly gets complicated. The Third Man (1949) knows this. A film noir with real profundity, the movie is home to one of moviedom's great villains: Harry Lime. Yet Orson Welles' performance is very nearly secondary; Harry Lime is a creation of his American friend (Joseph Cotten), his lover (Alida Valli), his pursuer (Trevor Howard). Of the Americans, the British, the Russians, the French. And they're all tripping over themselves...
Another perplexing scene in the novel, though a much less politically charged one, is the issue of Alida, John's adored girlfriend. She is described time and time again as beautiful, brilliant, and full of personality. She also eludes John's proposals of marriage repeatedly. Then, as suddenly as the radio station scandal arises, she agress to be his wife. One could believe that this is nothing more than Keillor's deus ex machina for the story--she has to say yes eventually, but it has to take a while to build suspense...
...disbelief has to be employed on the reader's part as well. Why is such an incredible catch attracted to this quiet Midwestern boy? And why does she suddenly say yes, after so many enthusiastic no's? After reading the sweetly sentimental poem John wrote for their wedding, Alida falls into his arms, and he realizes "why men have written poems all these centuries--it is to impress a woman in hopes that she will sleep with you." It is as if Alida has suddenly thrown away her previous desires to live life fully as a single person...