Alida Valli, RIP

Italian actress Alida Valli died this past weekend at the age of 84. Libertarians and the Ayn Rand crowd may best remember Valli for her portrayal of Kira in Goffredo Alessandrini’s Noi vivi (1942), the extraordinary movie adaptation of Rand’s We the Living (inexplicably unavailable on DVD; I have an old laser disc (!) copy). Most of us, though, fell in love with Valli in Carol Reed’s classic 1949 film The Third Man, in which she hauntingly played Anna Schmidt. And many of us men, who will never fully understand women, will always be astonished that Anna could shrug off the love of Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martins, preferring to be victimized by her “lover” Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Ah well... Good night, Alida Valli. (Thanks, Anders Monsen, for bringing her obit to my attention.)