Anton Karas: the zither timed to The Third Man
Anton Karas supplied The Third Man with a zither theme that belonged to its Vienna setting and traveled far beyond it. The film's music credit identifies him as the zither performer; the American Film Institute also records that the instrument accompanies the film throughout. Carol Reed directed, Graham Greene supplied the screenplay, and Robert Krasker photographed the black-and-white images. Beside those familiar production roles stood a distinctive musical choice: one plucked instrument carried a score that could sound cheerful, insinuating or melancholy, without the changing instrumental colors of a conventional orchestra.
The surviving production photograph reproduced by the British Film Institute makes that choice tangible. Anton Karas sits with his zither while watching a specially marked copy of the film. The markings indicate when his playing should begin and end. This was music fitted to moving images, with entrances and stopping points, rather than a café performance simply laid beneath a finished picture.
John Oliver's later BFI discussion describes a narrower original plan: Reed intended to use the zither intermittently alongside a more conventional score. The decision to use Karas's music alone expanded the instrument's responsibility across the film. Oliver places its sound within central Europe's folk and café culture and distinguishes the jaunty Harry Lime theme from the melancholy of the final long take. His description concerns musical mood; the production photograph supplies the concrete evidence of synchronization. Together they connect a regional performance tradition with the precise demands of cinema.
Anton Karas already had a musical career before Reed encountered him. Uwe Harten's entry in the Austrian Music Lexicon records four years of training at Vienna's music academy and work as a zither soloist before his international breakthrough. It places Reed's discovery of the musician in Vienna's Sievering district, where he performed in wine taverns. The entry describes a trained virtuoso, rather than someone who first took up an instrument for the camera. His local employment and his musical preparation were separate parts of the experience he brought to the production.
The lexicon's list of compositions also gives Anton Karas a repertoire beyond the famous melody. It includes Carol Theme, Second Theme, Zither Rhythm and Café Mozart Waltz. After The Third Man, he toured internationally, appeared in entertainment films during the 1950s and regularly played in his own Viennese tavern, Zum Dritten Mann. Harten dates those regular performances to 1953–1966. The venue's name carried the film back into the setting of tavern music, even as touring and cinema had given its performer a much wider professional life.
Contemporary coverage caught that transition in progress. TIME's report of 28 November 1949 put record sales at 300,000 and described nightclub bands playing Karas's tunes. It reported that he returned to London after going back to his Vienna café. At the Empress Club, Princess Margaret's party requested the Harry Lime theme repeatedly; he also appeared at the Royal Film Performance. These are details of the music's immediate reception in 1949, distinct from later claims about its lasting place in film history.
The closing scene offers a different measure of what Anton Karas accompanied. In a BFI interview, second-unit continuity supervisor Angela Allen recalled working on the shot in which Alida Valli walks toward the camera past Joseph Cotten. Reed placed her farther back and resisted suggestions to cover the walk with additional angles and close-ups. Allen remembered another take with a shorter walk, but the extended version reflected his deliberate choice. Her testimony documents the staging and coverage of the scene; Oliver's later musical description identifies the melancholy zither accompaniment associated with it.
Allen also recalled staying with Reed in the cutting room after the location work, taking notes as the film changed daily. That recollection places the final images within a continuing editing process. The marked screening copy and Allen's memories preserve different jobs within the same production: shaping the sequence of shots and fitting music to their duration. Anton Karas's performance belonged inside that constructed rhythm. The patient walk at the end gave the instrument a different dramatic setting from the brisk personality of the celebrated theme.
The release record adds one further complication to the soundtrack's history. AFI distinguishes a British opening narrated by Reed from an American version narrated by Cotten as Holly Martins. It also records that the British film ran approximately eleven minutes longer. The familiar title therefore circulated in editions with different openings and lengths. Anton Karas remained its defining musical presence, while narration and editing altered around that performance. The zither's prominence survived the passage from a Viennese production encounter to international release.
- American Film Institute, The Third Man (1949): production credits, soundtrack and release versions — catalog.afi.com
- John Oliver, British Film Institute, 15 great British film scores: Karas production photograph and musical choices, 26 June 2015 — www.bfi.org.uk
- Uwe Harten, Austrian Music Lexicon, Karas, Anton: training, compositions and performing career — www.musiklexikon.ac.at
- TIME, Music: Zither Dither, 28 November 1949: contemporary sales and London performances — time.com
- Sam Wigley, British Film Institute, How we made The Third Man: Angela Allen interview, first published 2019 — www.bfi.org.uk
- Wikipedia, The Third Man, Music section: attributed Guy Hamilton account of the Vienna party — en.wikipedia.org