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 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 Anton Karas | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Biography All Music Guide All Music Guide: 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. Anton Karas | New Music And Songs | Anton Karas About Anton Karas 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, Rovi Hear more of Anton Karas - Biography | Billboard Anton Karas Vienna, Austria 1906 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, Rovi Related Artists 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. Anton Karas | Free Internet Radio | Slacker Radio Charles Aznavour 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 Anton Karas ANTON KARAS - Anton Karas (ca. 1955), playing a Karas-zither. - "Weinschenke zum dritten mann" (ca. 1955)...note Karas's house on the hill in the background.

- Anton Karas, playing a Karas-zither with his "Two Rudi's" (ca. 1955) - Anton Karas (ca. 1960) with a hand-written note to his wife "Der lieben Gattin..." - "To my beloved wife Dolli - 23/07/63". ANTON KARAS - b. July 7, 1906 in Vienna; d. January 9, 1985 in Vienna Anton Karas was just another Viennese zither player, performing at different wine gardens at night and working at odd jobs during the day. That was, until he was "discovered" by Carol Reed, producer of the movie The Third Man, to score the music for the film. The rest was then history. Raised in the Brigittenau district of Vienna, he began studying the zither at the age of 12. The story goes that one day he found an old zither in an attic. His father allowed him to take lessons. This started with Professor Spiegel at Musikschule Horack and ended studying under the Viennese zither virtuoso Adolf Schneer.

Karas began playing at wine gardens at the age of 17. This he continued to do for the next 28 years, until his meeting with Carol Reed! As the fame of the music from The Third Man spread, he began performing all over Europe, including a 32-week tour of the United States in 1951. In 1952, he opened his Weinschenke Zum Dritten Mann in the Sievering district of Vienna. He continued playing at his wine garden, which had varying degrees of success, over the years. In addition, he made special performances and recordings. He retired from the wine garden when a chain bought it out. His compositions include: "Wien, Weib, Wein", "Karasitaten". * Used in the movie The Third Man some of which were merely incidental background pieces, later to be given names. ** This piece (used for the ending scene in the movie where the Alida Valli character walked passed the Joseph Cotton character in the cemetery) was an anachronism. In fact, Karas did not compose it. As the story goes, it was a 200-year old piece he took from a zither study book.

He revised it, rearranging the notes in rapid successions (such as Chopin did to a degree) to extend the tone of the notes being played. Directly after his success with the movie The Third Man, Karas had his dream zither made. This zither use acoustic amplification of the accompaniment and base strings (often overpowering the melody strings). This amplification was achieved by leaving the instruments thickness on the fret board side of about one inch. However, the thickness on the opposite side was increased almost two-fold! Several of this type were made, and were known as "Karas-zithern" by the Austrian music trade. Some of the accompanying photos show this type of instrument. He did not play this type of zither until after the advent of The Third Man. Karas never again had the film success that he earned with The Third Man. His "Third Man Theme" earned him the title of the king of the one-song composers.

If all were told, his "Third Man Theme" is one of the most recognizable melodies, even to this day, with sales and performances at an all-time high for a "one-song composer." The Karas Sound: Many frustrating hours have been spent by zitherists trying to emulate the film's sound...here is part of the secret! The music-track for the film The Third Man was recorded with the zither placed on a small kitchen table set on the wooden floor of the sound studio. Microphones were placed at several levels and positions around the table. The sound engineer then further enhanced the score, with portions dubbed. Truly, the sound was due to Karas' skills, zither tuning and to the fact that he had very strong fingers which enabled him to carry through his style of playing. Anton Karas (ca.

1949), with fingers positioned for the beginning of "The Third Man Theme", showing the zither (of normal proportions) and table used in the film The Third Man Anton Karas | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Bruce Eder 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.

Anton Karas — Listen for free on Spotify Anton Karas Play on Spotify 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, Rovi Read More Show less

Question: Which musical instrument did Anton Karas play when he recorded the Third Man theme?
Answer: ZITHER