The Third Man Soundtrack (1949) by Andrew Granade August 24, 2003 It seems as though every country has a cinematic sound associated with it, an instrument that serves to symbolize it for the purposes of evocation.ï¿½ Consider last year's score for Amelie.ï¿½ A frothy concoction of a movie and score, every aspect of production design needed to seep the essence of Paris out of its pores.ï¿½ Visually, the most recognized areas were visited and heightened through the use of a hyper-real color palate. ï¿½In order to balance the production aurally, the sound of the accordion was allowed to permeate every scene, adding a feeling of decadent love to the proceedings.ï¿½ Whether it be the brass band for England, the didgeridoo for Australia, or the sitar for all things Indian and often Middle Eastern as well, we have coded sounds onto geography for instantly recognizable access. So if you were making a movie about post-WWII Vienna, what instrument would you use?ï¿½ The violin?ï¿½ The piano?ï¿½ No, you would use the zither.

The Third Man, one of the greatest of all film noirs, has a palatable sense of place.ï¿½ The bombed-out buildings, cracked streets, and decaying facades are a character equal to the enigmatic Harry Lime.ï¿½ Visually the production is laced with a feeling of dread, with a darkness born of a particular moment in history.ï¿½ Yet, Vienna is a city of dreams and even in its post-apocalyptic state, there is a certain nostalgia for the grandeur that once was.ï¿½ It is to this instinct the score was directed.ï¿½ While viewers absorbed the oppressive scenes, the music crept into the backs of their minds reminding them of what was lost.ï¿½ A startling juxtaposition to be sure, but one so successful that Anton Karas's score is still considered a hallmark of film music composition, even more than fifty years later.

The music is performed exclusively on a zither, a stringed instrument on which the strings run the length of the body, which acts as the primary resonator.ï¿½ Think of an autoharp or dulcimer and you will have the idea.ï¿½ In adopting this Austrian instrument as the basis of the score, Karas appropriated its music as well.ï¿½ Two main themes run throughout, the first of which is introduced in the second cue, "The Harry Lime Theme."ï¿½ This jaunty tune is in a square four with a bass line alternating between tonic and dominant.ï¿½ Musically it is quite simple, a series of variations on a theme, but its nostalgic sentimentality lends it a charm that one carries outside the viewing.ï¿½ The second main theme is, fittingly for the city of Johann Strauss, Jr., a waltz.ï¿½ Introduced in the fourth cue, "The Cafï¿½ Mozart Waltz," the lilting melody is even more ironic in context than "The Harry Lime Theme." These two themes, or more specifically their styles, dominate the short cues of the CD, all the way to short waltzes such as "Danube Dreams."ï¿½

 Although it may sound uninteresting, the score is anything but and has been a perennial bestseller since the late 1940s.ï¿½ No film score collection would be truly complete without this gem.

The main question, then, is if this new recording of the score is worth purchasing or if you should go with another.ï¿½ One of the strangest features of this CD is a hold-over from the 50th Anniversary release of a few years ago.ï¿½ Interspersed between the music cues are snippets of dialogue from the movie.ï¿½ While they do provide a hint of the juxtaposition inherent to the score's success, I would suggest purchasing the wonderful transfer of the movie released by the Criterion Collection for the full experience.ï¿½ Here it merely serves as distraction. The sound is uniformly good, with deep, rich bass strings and a brightness to the upper register. Gertrud Huber performs on the zither with panache and sensitivity.ï¿½ Also, orchestral versions of the two main themes performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine are added on to the end to entice you further.ï¿½ Yet, if you are satisfied with your current recording I would suggest you stay with it.ï¿½ If, however, you have never experienced the film or score, then by all means you owe it to yourself to find out what the fuss is about.

Theme from the Third Man Anton Karas, zither - YouTube Theme from the Third Man Anton Karas, zither Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Feb 1, 2010 Category The Third Man (1949) Pages: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) Background The Third Man (1949) is a visually-stylish thriller - a paranoid story of social, economic, and moral corruption in a depressed, rotting and crumbling, 20th century Vienna following World War II. The striking film-noirish, shadowy thriller was filmed expressionistically within the decadent, shattered and poisoned city that has been sector-divided along geo-political lines. The black and white, pessimistic film is one of the greatest British thrillers of the post-war era, in the best Alfred Hitchcock tradition, and beautifully produced and directed by Britisher Carol Reed.

It was voted the #1 British Film of the 20th Century by the esteemed British Film Institute (BFI). It was co-produced by Hungarian-born Alexander Korda and American movie mogul David O. Selznick. Because Korda gave American distribution rights to Selznick (who cut eleven minutes from the original British version), the credits of the US version include Selznick references. This was Reed's second collaboration with British screenwriter-author Graham Greene (after The Fallen Idol (1948)). It was based on Greene's novella of the same name, written solely to be a source text for the film screenplay and never intended to be read or published. It was a clever and original mystery tale simply evoked by one sentence written by Greene: "I saw a man walking down the Strand, whose funeral I had only recently attended." It told of a love triangle with nightmarish suspense, treachery, betrayal, guilt and disillusionment. Its two most famous sequences include the Ferris-wheel showdown high atop a deserted fairground with the famous cuckoo clock speech (written by Orson Welles), and the climactic chase through the underground network of sewers beneath the cobblestone streets.

In defiance of US producer Selznick, Reed boldly refused to cast Noel Coward in the Harry Lime role (played ultimately by Orson Welles), insisted on a downbeat ending and demanded that it be shot on-location in expressionistic, documentary-style. [Cary Grant and James Stewart were also considered for the role of naive novelist Holly Martins (named Rollo Martin originally), ultimately played by Welles' Mercury Theatre actor and Citizen Kane (1941) co-star Joseph Cotten.] The director knew that the film's musical score could not be reflective of the traditional Old Vienna - waltz music by Strauss. Instead, it would be provided by a solo instrument -- a zither. The jaunty but haunting musical score by Viennese composer/performer Anton Karas lingers long after the film's viewing with its twangy, mermerizing, lamenting, disconcerting (and sometimes irritating) hurdy-gurdy tones.

In fact, Karas' musical instrument was a leading film character and advertised as such: "He'll have you in a dither with his zither (a laptop string instrument)." The insistent, chilling music sets a mood of polarized dislocations in the world (e.g., war and play, men and children) and in the corrupted city's 'no-man's-land' environment (with its bombed out, war-torn ruins, dark and slick streets, cemeteries and sewers criss-crossing beneath the sectored zones). Surprisingly, it was nominated for only three Academy Awards in 1950, including Best Director, and Best Film Editing. Its sole Oscar was for Robert Krasker's vivid, atmospheric, moody black/white cinematography (although the final long cemetery walk scene was actually shot by uncredited German cameraman Hans Schneeberger). Unusually reckless, canted camera angles (one of their earliest uses), and wide-angle lens distortions amidst the atmospheric on-location views of a shadowy Vienna cast a somber mood over the fable of post-war moral ambiguity and ambivalent redemption.

The deliberately unsettling, tilted angles reflected the state of the ruined, fractured and dark city, filled with black marketeers, spies, refugees, thieves, and foreign powers seeking control. [This was one of the first British films shot almost entirely on location. Others include writer/director Michael Powell's The Edge of the World (1937) and Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's The 49th Parallel (1941) (aka The Invaders).] And the film once again teamed co-stars Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles of Citizen Kane (1941) , in a tale of a foolishly-romantic, wimpy American writer (Holly Martins) of pulp westerns in occupied, post-WWII Vienna who tries to understand (and then decipher) the mysterious disappearance - vehicular accidental death and burial of an old school friend (Harry Lime) - who, unbeknownst to him, had become an exploitative, morally corrupt, and chilling black-market drug dealer and racketeer (of diluted penicillin), working out of the Russian zone.

[From 1951-52, Welles starred in a spin-off radio show titled The Lives of Harry Lime, a syndicated 52 episode series based on the adventures of his character in this film.] Anglo-Austrian director Frederick Baker created a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, including interviews, with the documentary essay Shadowing the Third Man (2004). This deconstruction of the film revisited various locales of the original film and compared them to the present-day restored Vienna. It also provided an account of the battles between co-producers Alexander Korda and David O. Selznick, and between scriptwriter Greene and Selznick.

In the documentary, Greene admitted for the first time: "Carol Reed was right he made a magnificent ending." The Story The credits of the complex masterpiece appear over a huge close-up of the vibrating strings of a zither, playing "The Harry Lime Theme" or "The Third Man Theme." While various documentary-style shots of post-war, divided, fragmented and occupied Vienna (a 'frontier' city dividing East and West - and governed by four Allied forces) are surveyed, an anonymous voice-over (from director Carol Reed) delivers a first-person prologue in the original UK version - suggesting that he had black market connections. [The lines only found in the UK version are in red.] [Joseph Cotten delivered the narration in the American release, delivering his own story - the lines in blue are only in the US version.] I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music, its glamour and [its] easy charm - Constantinople suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the Black Market.

[Boots, stockings, cigarettes, and watches exchange hands.] [They could get anything if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay.] We'd run anything, if people wanted it enough- mmm - had the money to pay. Of course, a [the] situation like that does tempt amateurs, but [of course, they don't last long, not really, not like professionals] you know they can't stay the course like a professional. [A view of a dead body floating in an icy river.] Now the city - [A sign announces: "ENTERING THE AMERICAN ZONE."] it's [is] divided into four zones, you know, each occupied by a power - [Views of signs of the British, Russian, and French zones.] the American, the British, the Russian, and the French. But the center of the city - that's international, policed by an International Patrol, [A view of guard's duty being changed.] one member of each of the four powers. Wonderful.

[You can imagine what a chance they had], What a hope they had, all of them strangers to the place and none [no two] of them could speak [speaking] the same language, except a sort of smattering of German. [Four guards in a jeep each represent their nationalities.] [Oh, they were] Good fellows on the whole, did their best, you know. [Views of bombed-out sites around Vienna.] Vienna doesn't really look any worse than a lot of other European cities, bombed about a bit [a little, of course]. [Views of soldiers on guard, and then standing on parade and marching in a square.] Oh, I was gonna tell you, wait, I was gonna tell you about Holly Martins, an American. Came all the way here to visit a friend of his. The name is Lime, Harry Lime. Now Martins was broke and Lime had offered him some sort - I don't know - some sort of a job. Anyway, there he was, poor chap, happy as a lark and without a cent. [Anyway, I was dead broke when I got to Vienna.

A close pal of mine had wired me, offering me a job doing publicity work for some kind of charity he was running. I'm a writer, name's Martins, Holly Martins. Anyway, down I came, all the way to old Vienna, happy as a lark and without a dime.] An American, Western pulp novelist/writer of juvenile Western pulp stories (Zane Grey-style), Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) [a frivolous first name to define the nature of his character] arrives at the railway station in post-war ravaged Vienna - still under Allied occupation and overrun with black markets. A youthful, sappy counterpart to the film's dark, con-artist counterpart, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), Holly is there to seek out his boyhood friend who had vaguely offered him a job (and sent him an airplane ticket), inviting him there to stay with him and author/write propaganda for a volunteer medical unit he runs. As his passport is checked by a British MP, he asks about Lime. He tells the customs official he's going to stay with a friend at 15 Stiftgasse.

The zither music dips, signifying that something is awry concerning the absence of Harry: Lime, Harry Lime....I thought he'd be here to meet me. Beginning his long, questioning search for Harry Lime, Holly makes his way to Stiftgasse 15, the location of Harry's second floor apartment, inauspiciously walking under a ladder leaning against the front of the residence. The building's architecture includes pseudo-Greek statuary, a facade of Vienna's past glory, now a city filled with corruption. [Goof: Note that the house number is 5 over the entrance to Harry Lime's apartment, not 15.] He is immediately shocked to learn from the German-speaking caretaker/Porter (Paul Hoerbiger), who is replacing a burnt-out light bulb, [a symbolic gesture of the repair of Europe], that Harry was recently killed on Thursday in a street accident - he was run over by a truck as he stepped from the sidewalk, and his coffin was taken ten minutes earlier to the cemetery: An accident, knocked over by a car in front of the house, have seen it myself, killed at once, immediately. Already in hell [pointing up mistakenly] or in heaven [pointing down mistakenly].

Sorry for the grave diggers. Hard work. It is frost. [The film both begins and ends with a funeral sequence and the burial of the same person.] Holly hurriedly rushes to the gravesite in the cemetery to attend Harry's funeral. As he approaches, he inquires about the cryptic ceremony, and is told by a distant onlooker (later identified as Major Calloway): "A fellow called Lime." A priest is saying prayers in German at the gravesite as Martins arrives - there are only a few stoic-faced onlookers and one beautiful woman. [Later, we learn it is Harry's Czech grieving mistress/girlfriend Anna Schmidt, a Russian exile and refugee.] After the ceremony, Martins is given a ride to town by cynical British military police officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard). As they ride down the main road, Calloway notices the attractive dark-haired woman who was at the graveside walking towards the city. He follows her receding figure while looking out the car's back window.

Calloway offers to buy Holly a drink and the scene dissolves to the inside of a bar, where Martins reminisces about his old chum whom he last saw in September 1939 - his thoughts suggest a latent homosexual attraction: Holly: I guess nobody knew Harry like he did, like I did...back in school. I was never so lonesome in my life till he showed up...Best friend I ever had. Calloway: That sounds like a cheap novelette. Holly: I write cheap novelettes. Calloway: I'm afraid I've never heard of you. What's your name again? Holly: Holly Martins. Anton Karas on Apple Music To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music.

Biography By some reckoning, Anton Karas was the quintessential one-hit wonder, a man associated the world over with one song, and one song only, "The Third Man Theme" (also known as "The Harry Lime Theme.") Few musicians, however, ever did more to insinuate the sound of a single, relatively obscure musical instrument on the consciousness of the world -- Karas and the "Third Man Theme" did for the zither what George Harrison and a handful of Beatles tunes did for the sitar, only in a much bigger way, selling many millions of copies. That piece of music turned Karas into a wealthy man after 28 years of toiling in obscurity in relative poverty in Vienna. Karas was born in Vienna in 1906, the son of an automobile worker. He began playing the zither -- a stringed instrument vaguely similar to an autoharp -- at age 12. By 1921, at age 15, he was earning a living of sorts entertaining patrons for tips in Vienna's taverns. Karas remained in the city throughout the tumultuous years of the rise of Nazi sympathies and the German takeover, the war, and the Allied occupation that followed.

He supported a wife and three children on as little as $15 a week in those days, and then, in September of 1948 (some sources say the spring of 1949), fate took a hand. British director Carol Reed was in Vienna shooting a thriller called The Third Man, based on a story by Graham Greene. Most of the details of the final film had been worked out, but not the music -- Reed had decided that there would not be any Johann Strauss waltzes, but not what would be used for the score. One night, he was passing by a Heuriger, a wine tavern where growers offer their own wines for sale directly, and heard Karas' playing in the background. Reed had never heard a zither before and found the sound to be attractive. He approached Karas and persuaded him to play for him at his hotel, where he made a recording and brought back to the studio to test. He liked the effect when the zither's sound was placed against the recorded dialogue and, ignoring the protests of many around him, hired Karas and brought him to London for 12 weeks.

It wasn't always a harmonious time in London, as Karas, who had never traveled outside of Austria before, quickly grew homesick. Reed (in whose home Karas stayed -- with Reed's wife Penelope translating German and English between them) promised to let him return home after the score was completed. Karas screened the movie hundreds of times, devising music for each scene. The Third Man ended up with a vast amount of music, scored in virtually every scene of its 104 minutes. Ironically, the piece that became known as the "Third Man Theme" was something that Karas had written two decades earlier and hadn't played in over 15 years. As he later explained to Reed, playing the zither for a whole night for tips was hard work, and one tended to play the easiest pieces the most often, to save the fingers. The movie put Karas' score into the foreground as much as any of the actors. The opening credits showed the strings of a zither in close-up, and the instrument was heard somewhere in virtually every scene, often as prominently as the dialogue.

The "Third Man Theme" (also known as the "Harry Lime Theme") was alternately brittle, jaunty, bittersweet, romantic, wry, and even sardonic piece of music -- which fit the mood of the story and the film perfectly -- that, once heard, couldn't be forgotten. The Third Man was finished and prepared for release, and Reed and the production company, London Films, tried to raise interest in it through the music. None of the record companies, however, was interested in recording Karas or releasing the "Third Man Theme." The music was too strange and different, and although British movies had produced some soundtrack successes in the past, those were usually more conventional light classical pieces, such as Richard Addinsell's Rachmaninov-like "Warsaw Concerto," not a jangly piece of music played on a central European folk instrument. Finally, the movie opened in late 1949 in England, and within days requests started to be heard at record stores.

Word quickly filtered back up the line to the record companies, and England's Decca label (London Records in the U.S.) cut the single, and then an accompanying LP, the jacket of which used the black silhouette of the mysterious Harry Lime (the Orson Welles character associated with the theme) against a red background. The single sold a half-million copies in its first month of release, an astonishing number in postwar England, and became a number one hit in England and later in America, where the movie didn't open until 1950. At least 13 cover versions appeared, recorded on everything from guitars to organ, and sheet music sales, transcribed for either piano or guitar, were huge as well. Karas, who'd returned to Vienna immediately after seeing the movie at its opening in London, didn't know about these events for several weeks -- he was back at his old place, playing for tips. Then the messages began coming in, from the film's production company, music publishers, and finally the Royal Family, with invited him back to London for a command performance.

Bookings for performances in England followed and, with the help of the Selznick Organization, which distributed the movie in the United States, he came to America. Karas recorded a several follow-ups to "The Third Man Theme," and even wrote a "Karol Theme" in tribute to Carol Reed, but none took off in the same way. He was able to retire from performing for a living, however -- by the early '50s, he'd bought his own Heuriger, named "The Winehouse at the Sign of the Third Man" and only played and recorded for pleasure after that. In his performances, audiences were often puzzled by the fact that he saved "The Third Man Theme" for last, preferring to play Viennese folk songs and popular standards (even "In the Mood"), and then proceeded on some occasions to finish with the hit, playing 30 minutes of variations on "The Third Man Theme." Other zither players never got it to sound just right.

The truth was that as recorded for the movie, "The Third Man Theme" was one of the first practical examples of overdubbing on a hit record, rivaling Les Paul's work -- Karas had gotten just the right effect working underneath Reed's kitchen table, and had gotten the piece just right by recording and mixing more than one zither part. Karas later re-recorded the theme several times, and it was also covered by instrumental acts such as the Shadows. Meanwhile, he'd started a zither craze -- not only did he get to cut several albums during the early '50s, but suddenly there was serious international demand for zither music. One musician, Ruth Welcome, recorded at least a half-dozen LPs of the instrument in the United States. And even Edward D. Wood, Jr., the renowned bargain basement auteur, was inspired by Karas' theme. He wanted to use a zither as the source of background music for his 1954 crime-drama Jail Bait, but zither virtuosi were hard to come by in Hollywood, especially in Wood's non-existent price-range, so he tracked in classical guitar music to the finished film instead.

The "Third Man Theme" was later used on a radio series spun out of the movie's success, with Orson Welles reprising his role of Harry Lime in a somewhat more benign guise, and a television series called The Third Man, starring Michael Rennie as an international adventurer named Harry Lime and Jonathan Harris (Lost In Space) as his nervous assistant, and re-using Karas' theme again, the show ran for two seasons in the late '50s, and was in reruns for years in the '60s. The theme continued to turn up on albums, covered by instrumental rock acts, well into the '80s, while the reruns of the movie keep adding to the ranks of listeners familiar with the zither -- a 1999 nationwide theatrical reissue of a restored edition of the movie will undoubtedly continue the process. ~ Bruce Eder Top Albums The Zithers of Anton Karas | Zither US Home The Zithers of Anton Karas Anton Karas, through his music in the film 'The Third Man', propelled the zither to new heights of popularity around the world. In this article, Dr.

Günter Wittenstein details the life and zithers of Anton Karas, whose zither music carried the mood and so brilliantly accented the plot of The Third Man movie. Since 1949 the zither has been inseparable from the film 'The Third Man'. After being an instrument of strictly regional importance the zither gained international recognition with the 'Harry Lime Theme', played by zither virtuoso Anton Karas (1906 - 1985). Only a few people know about the character of zithers, and even fewer know exactly which zither Karas used to compose and record the now famous film score. Known today as the 'film zither' this historic instrument remained hidden from the public for two decades, but is now on display in Vienna's Third Man Museum. The Character of Zithers Photo Courtesy Third Man Museum Vienna © The zither belongs to the piano family and is a combination of guitar and harp. The fretboard is played with the left hand and has 5 strings (adgGc = Viennese tuning or aadgc = Munich -or common tuning).

The part of the zither resembling a harp has up to 37 open strings which are tuned in the order of the circle of fifths. They are played with the fingers of the right hand whilst the thumb, at the same time, has to strike the strings of the fretboard: a rather difficult undertaking! The 'Early Zither' of Anton Karas In 1918 the 12 year old Anton Karas found a concert zither in the attic, which he started to play. He was very much influenced by the zither virtuoso Adolf Schneer. By the age of 17 Karas was already playing for tips in local wine taverns, by this time on a zither made by Anton Kiendl (1816-1871). Kiendl was famous for his zither playing, but received even more credit as a zither manufacturer, indeed he is deemed to be the founder of the 'Viennese Zither School'. This early zither of Anton Karas is about 160 years old and was recently restored by Curt Claus Voigt (Munich), and is thus still playable today.

I myself have played it to mark Karas' centenary, on July 7th, 2006, amplified by the original resonance table (made of maple and palisander, with black stained pear wood inlaying, on which are placed the zither's feet). This zither, together with the resonance table, is in the possession of the Karas family. The 'Film Zither' After the Second World War, Anton Karas played a larger zither with a 43 scale fretboard. The 5 strings over the fretboard and the 29 accompaniment strings were arranged according to 'Viennese tuning', which Karas favoured over the now commonly used one. The fretboard strings are in chromatically illogical order, also the open strings are placed differently. The accompaniment strings g and f# are tuned one octave higher, whereas the contrabasses eb, f, d, e, c# replace the supposed basses of the circle of fifths. So the contrabasses come closer to the fretboard and can be reached easier. Proponents of the commonly used stringing call this a defect. The Viennese call it an effect!

Karas slightly modified the Viennese tuning and did not replace the Eb bass by an Eb contrabass. An Eb bass can be heard only once in the film during the chromatically played sequence after the sentence "We have better witnesses. Look here..." (g, f#, f, e, eb, d, g#, d). During a conversation with Karas he noted down for me the Viennese tuning on the back of an autographed photograph. This note is now on display in the Third Man Museum, alongside the film zither. The film zither was tuned half a note lower compared to the now commonly tuned a, giving it the distinction of a beautiful and unique sound. Carol Reed described the sound as "gritty and dirty". Incidentally, the best sound was created on Reed's oak kitchen table, the table on which the film music was composed on. In summer 1949 under Carol Reed's influence, Karas was at the height of his art. He recalled this period with the words "it was so artistic". During the famous opening sequence of the film 'The Third Man', the soundhole and accompaniment strings of the zither are shown.

The movement of the strings, however, is for effect only and does not correspond with the 'Harry Lime Theme' playing in the background. After the world premiere of the film in 1949, the film zither was restored by the company Franz Nowy (Vienna), during which a soundhole label baring the Nowy logo, and the remark "repaired in 1949", was attached. It is a simple instrument without enclosed tuners for the fretboard strings, the top is mahogany veneered, and the back and the sides are varnished black. In the upper part of the fretboard one can see a stamp indicating the restoration by Nowy. Beneath this mark another stamp is visible inscribed "G. Haid Wien". Georg Haid (1864-1951) was manufacturer of zithers and guitars. He was trained under Johann I. Bucher and had his own factory in Vienna from 1894 onwards. On the outer edge of the top of the zither there are three damages to the intarsia line. Due to Anton Karas' intense and intensive playing the film zither shows heavy signs of usage.

Anton Karas' Film Zither - Photo Courtesy Third Man Museum Vienna © Only a few weeks after the film's opening in 1949, Karas was invited to play the film zither at the Senior Empress Club in London to the delight of Princess Margaret and others alike. It was also this zither that accompanied Karas on his early tours: he played it at Buckingham Palace and for Pope Pius XII in Rome. The audience with the Pope was scheduled for 5 minutes, but according to Karas he spent "35 minutes with the man". Later the film zither was put aside for several decades, on a shelf in Karas' garden house in the back of his wine tavern in Vienna-Sievering. Fortunately, in 2005 Karin Hoefler and Gerhard Strassgschwandtner were able to acquire this legendary instrument for the Third Man Museum. The 'ANGU-Full Sound Zithers' Following the great success of the film, the appearance and technical possibilities of the film zither no longer fulfilled Karas' requirements and he was able to afford a custom-made instrument.

Using Karas' ideas, Anton Guggenberger, master at Nowy zither factory, built the so-called 'ANGU Full Sound Zither' (ANGU-Vollklangzither), giving it his own name: ANGU stands for ANton GUggenberger. The ANGU zither is wedge-shaped (6 cm high beneath the bass strings, which is double the height at the fretboard). This was to ensure a stronger sound of the contrabasses. ANGU Zither - Photo Courtesy Third Man Museum Vienna © This zither had 5 strings over the fretboard and 26 open strings. The accompaniment string ab next to the fretboard was planned but not attached, also the contrabasses b and bb were missing. Anton Karas played this particular zither with its straight right bridge and black varnished back from at least 1953 onwards (when he opened his own wine tavern "Zum Dritten Mann" in Vienna-Sievering) until two years before his death in 1985. According to his will this zither was put on his coffin to follow him into the grave, although whether the instrument really is there remains a secret!

Photo Courtesy Third Man Museum Vienna © Guggenberger also built another similar zither for Karas in the 1950s. The upper part of the right bridge on this instrument is flared to the right, making it possible to attach longer bass strings, which were handmade by Nowy. Karas himself claimed that he had used this zither mainly "for photo shoot", although Nowy told me that he had to maintain this instrument on a regular basis because Karas worked it so hard. It is this zither that is now on display in the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments in the Neue Burg in Vienna. Certainly Anton Karas' great love for the zither lasts beyond his death: his tomb stone in Vienna's Sievering Cemetary is in the shape of a zither, inscribed in gold with the opening bars of the 'Harry Lime Theme'. Our kind regards are extended to Dr. Günter Wittenstein for his permission to publish this article. Photographs used for this article are courtesy of the Third Man Museum Vienna ©. The Third Man Museum is the project of Karin Hoefler and Gerhard Strassgschwandtner.

For additional information, visit the Third Man Museum's web site at or e-mail contact3mpc@hotmail.com Do you have stories or experiences pertaining to the zither that you would like to share with the community? If so, contact us. © Copyright 2007 - 2016 David Kyger. All rights reserved. The Third Man (1949) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

Director: a list of 47 titles created 29 Nov 2011 a list of 34 titles created 28 Dec 2012 a list of 25 titles created 19 Aug 2014 a list of 22 titles created 24 Feb 2015 a list of 25 titles created 3 months ago Title: The Third Man (1949) 8.3/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 4 nominations. See more awards » Videos A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town. Director: Orson Welles A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity. Director: Billy Wilder An insurance representative lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses an insurance investigator's suspicions.

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Director: Alfred Hitchcock A veteran British barrister must defend his client in a murder trial that has surprise after surprise. Director: Billy Wilder A self-conscious bride is tormented by the memory of her husband's dead first wife. Director: Alfred Hitchcock Edit Storyline An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has lead to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime. Written by Mark Thompson <mrt@oasis.icl.co.uk> Carol Reed's Classic Thriller See more » Genres: 31 August 1949 (UK) See more » Also Known As: The 3rd Man See more » Filming Locations: $13,576 (USA) (7 May 1999) Gross: Graham Greene 's only original screenplay.

See more » Goofs In the sewer, before putting his fingers through the grate, Harry Lime holds the stair's supporting pole with his right hand, but the gun should be in his hand, as displayed before and after this shot. See more » Quotes Opening credits prologue: V I E N N A See more » Connections That Terrific B&W Cinematography 20 June 2009 | by Lechuguilla (Dallas, Texas) – See all my reviews In a bombed-out Vienna just after WWII, novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives from America to renew a friendship with his childhood buddy, Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Much to the dismay of Holly, a freak auto accident has recently killed his friend, according to those who knew Harry. But in searching for details of Lime's death, Holly gets contradictory stories that don't add up. One of the persons who knew Lime is an attractive woman named Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) whose continued presence in the story invites suspicion. The film's plot has Holly searching for the truth about his friend, while trying to stave off a city detective, Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) who tries to persuade Holly to leave Vienna.

The film's story is okay. But what makes "The Third Man" really interesting is the B&W cinematography, by Robert Krasker. Unlike most films, camera movement here is restricted, so as to draw attention to each frame's geometry. Typically in this film, a frame is tilted at an angle so that both vertical and horizontal points of reference are off-kilter. Frame images thus become a series of diagonal straight lines and curves. Further, very high-contrast lighting, especially in outdoor scenes at night, creates a bizarre, almost nightmarish look and feel, and are suggestive of German Expressionism. All of which results in a visual disorientation for viewers that parallels Holly's disorientation both in the streets of Vienna and in his understanding of the circumstances surrounding Lime's absence. In most outdoor scenes there's a conspicuous lack of crowds, a lack of hubbub one would expect in a bustling city. Instead, only a few secondary characters appear in night scenes. This sparseness in characters on the streets conveys the impression that hidden eyes are watching Holly, ready to pounce at any moment from out of dark shadows.

"Everybody ought to (be) careful in a city like this", says one character to Holly, as an implied threat. Soon, a man who wants to give Holly some valuable information is murdered. The script's dialogue is quite impressive, with some interesting lines and points of view. Some of the dialogue is in German, which enhances authenticity. The film's acting and editing are very, very good. Adding a slightly romantic, and at times melancholy, tone to this dark film is the music of the "zither", an instrument similar to a guitar, but sounding quite different. My one complaint about this film is that it's hard to keep tabs on some of the background characters. Trying to connect names with faces can be difficult, resulting in some confusion. "The Third Man" tells an interestingly bleak story, set in a bleak, desolate urban environment, rendered truly mesmerizing by the creatively surreal B&W cinematography. 27 of 49 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes

Question: On which instrument was the theme for The Third Man performed?
Answer: Zither