Cut back to the shot of the tunnel were Harry had been standing. He’s gone but a pack of officers are speeding down the tunnel after him. Cut to Harry climbing down a ladder. Cut back to the officers in the tunnel. This is all basic cutting between chaser and chasee. Cutting to Harry on the steps helps to compress time. It would be boring to see the police run all the way down the entire length of tunnel in one continuous shot.
In the next set of sequences, no matter where Harry tuns, the police are there. He tries to climb up to street level twice but the police are there both times. He scurries across the water, but the police are right on his tail. He scurries down a tunnel, but the police following in the tunnel right beneath him. The cumulative effect of these sequences is to make Harry’s situation appear hopeless. The shot of Harry and the police running in the same direction but at different levels of the sewer, totally unaware of each other, is an excellent way to create suspense and reveal everyone’s location in a single shot. It’s similar to the master shot earlier in the tunnel sequence when Harry’s shadow is projected on the back wall. The shot selection is similar each time Harry tries to escape out of the tunnel. There is shot of him looking upwards or climbing up a ladder and then there is his POV looking upwards at the police. This repetition creates a kind of visual rhythm and the viewer can anticipate things will keep turning out the badly for Harry.
Harry next finds himself in the epicenter of the sewers where all the tunnels converge. As he looks and listens to the voices in each tunnel the editor cuts to his POV. This is an effective use of sound to convey off-screen action. It puts the audience in Harry’s shoes. The viewer realizes he’s relying on sound to figure out where to run. They also realize that he’s surrounded, even though they don’t see images of the police. In the last shot, a wide master shot of the chamber, Harry takes a gamble and runs into one of the tunnels.
Cut to a Medium shot of Holly in a tunnel. He sees something. Cut to his POV: Harry is climbing down a ladder. Cut back to Holly calling out to Harry.
Cut to Harry hiding himself in a nook. As Harry and Holly talk, cut back and forth between them. Harry looks back for a moment and he spots a ladder. Cut to the shot of the ladder. Time and time again Harry has tried to escape up a ladder to the street so the audience is programmed to know how important that ladder is to the plot. Cut to Harry’s reaction. Cut to Sgt. Paine. He’s somewhere behind Holly, hears what’s going on, and warns him he is in danger. Cut back to Harry. Cut Harry’s POV. He sees Paine running at him. Cut to Major Calloway. This cut is important because he will play an important part at the end of the sequence and the editor needs to establish where he is. Cut to Paine running, he’s closing in. Cut to Harry firing his gun. Cut to a low angle shot of Paine. He’s been hit. Cut to the ground as Paine collapses. Cut to Holly’s reaction. Cut to Harry Running away in close up and in a wide shot.
Cut back to the same angle where Sgt. Paine was hit. Major Calloway enters the shot with his gun drawn. He fires. Even though the audience doesn’t see Paine’s body, because they’ve seen this exact angle before they realize the body is at Major Calloway’s feet. Cut to Harry collapsing at the end of the tunnel. Cut back to the shot of Paine on the floor. Calloway and Holly examine him.
Next is the final ladder climbing sequence. This one is very different from the all the others. Harry slowly inches his way up the metal steps as he is badly wounded. Harry’s body language, his expressionistic gestures, and the strain on his face help to create drama. It makes the cuts to his close ups very important. As he climbs up the ladder his POV’s of the sewer grate get closer. There is the sound of rushing air. There are a few cutaways to Holly and Major Calloway with Sgt. Paine’s body and to Holly approaching. These edits allow the editor to speed up Harry’s ascent up the ladder. When Harry gets to the top, like in all the other ladder escape sequences, the viewer is shown the action on street level. All the other times he tried to escape there were dogs or police, but this time the road is deserted, so the viewer knows the coast is clear. His fingers wiggle through the grate but he is unable to push it up. There is an eerie silence except for the sound of the wind rushing into the sewer. Cut to Harry collapsing. Cut to a close up of Holly. He’s in the room now with Harry. Cut back to Harry. The two stare at each other and say nothing.
Cut to Major Calloway hurrying down the tunnel warning Holly to shoot first and ask questions later. Next there is an extreme closeup of Holly inter-cut with shots of Harry slumped on the steps. The two say nothing, but Harry nods to Holly as if to say it’s okay to shoot me. Holly’s face is stoney, but still projects the complex emotions he is going through. Cut back Major Calloway. There is a gunshot and he freezes in his tracks. Cut to Holly emerging from the mist at the end of the tunnel. Harry was a kind of loveable villain beloved by Holly, so, in a way, showing his death would have been gratuitous. Dissolve to Harry’s funeral. It’s the same shot the viewer once saw at the start of the film. Harry had originally staged his funeral to evade the police. Repeating the shots at the start and end of the film helps to create closure. The audience has gone on this 90 minute journey and now they are back where it all started, but this time Harry is dead and buried for real.
Editor Oswald Hafenrichter used a number of techniques to help build a visual road map of Vienna’s tunnels. A map that enables the viewer to follow the complex action. He recognized the opportunities given to him by the director and cinematographer including the eye-lines, the lighting, the staging of action, the camera angles, and the gestures and expressions of the actors, and he used them to unfold the story’s map and story line to the viewer.