Search - Anton Karas :: Third Man & Other Original Recordings

The true Third Man soundtrack!

Mad Goat | 04/05/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For those disappointed with the 'Third Man Soundtrack' CD. Weep not. Buy this one. It is the closest thing I've been able to find to a true Third Man soundtrack. Not only does it contain all of the music from the film (as far as I can tell) it also features some of his other work. This particular CD is amongst my very favorites: Both for the quality and amount of music (25 tracks!) and it goes without saying, for the talent and of Kara's playing. Which is at once both beautiful, poignant and not without its humor.
I am delighted that Amazon is now listing this CD!"

This is the one you're looking for.

Alp ATICI | Chicago, IL United States | 04/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You've been looking for the original version of the music in "The Third Man", right? Every other CD on the market wouldn't work for you. But lucky for you, this is the one! Don't go wrong."

Perfect score for a perfect movie

Alma | Germany | 02/19/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Carol Reed's veteran cinematographer Robert Krasker's quirky angles under Reed's direction perfectly framed the ready-made-for-an-art designer bombed out shadows and stark, isolated street lights of post-war Vienna and its underworld. Unique to cinema history the whole score (but for some canned incidental cafe music) was just the brilliant zither playing of Anton Karas, adding his nuances to every dramatic transition. Krasker won an Oscar, and Karas was nominated.



The "Third Man Theme" (also known as the "Harry Lime Theme") is alternately brittle, jaunty, bittersweet, romantic, wry, and even sardonic piece of music--which fits the mood of the story and the film perfectly -- that, once heard, can't be forgotten.



The "Third Man Theme" turned Anton Karas into a wealthy man after 28 years of toiling in obscurity an relative poverty in Vienna.



One night, Carol Reed was passing by a wine tavern where growers offer their own wines for sale directly, and heard Anton Karas's 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, and made a recording, which Reed 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.



Anton 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 Anton 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.



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--Anton 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.



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, not a jangly piece of music played on a central European folk instrument."