Keeping Score: How a happy accident gave ‘The Third Man’ its iconic theme
In one of his many reviews, the great Roger Ebert posed the question, “Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action?”, and the movie he was talking about wasn’t The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Blade Runner, or anything scored by John Williams but a 1949 film noir that kills off Orson Welles within the first few minutes, that is, The Third Man.
Directed by Carol Reed, the movie is one of the most influential in the history of British cinema. With a screenplay from Graham Greene and revolutionary camerawork from Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker, the impact of the movie can be felt in everything from Chinatown to the James Bond series, and then there’s the music, which made a global star out of a previously unknown composer.
Anton Karas was born in Austria in 1905 with childhood dreams of becoming a bandleader, but he knew that was unlikely due to his family not being well off. One day, when he was about 12 years old, he was in his grandmother’s attic when he discovered the instrument that would one day make him famous, which was the zither.
For the uninitiated, a zither is a multi-stringed instrument usually played sitting down, holding it in one’s lap, and they come in different versions, some with one string, some with as many as 50, with its sound sitting somewhere between the pitch of a standard acoustic guitar and a mandolin. Though you can trace its roots back to ancient China, the zither is most commonly associated with the Alpine region of Europe, which explains why Karas’ grandmother had one in her attic.
Taking to the instrument like a fish to water, Karas mastered his accidental find and decided to embark on a career as an entertainer, which involved him moving to Vienna to begin playing in bars and taverns, somewhat fulfilling his young dreams, and that’s where Reed entered the picture to take him to the next level of music making.
While filming The Third Man in the city, the director was out one night when he stumbled across Karas playing and was immediately taken by the beautiful simplicity of the instrument and knew he had to have it in his film; despite initial protests from the musician, Karas eventually agreed to score the picture.
The most famous piece he composed was titled simply ‘The Third Man Theme’, a jaunty, almost comedic-sounding tune which became an instant hit, quickly becoming just as popular, if not more so, than the movie itself.
It topped the charts in the United States for weeks on end and became a key part of the film’s marketing, wherein the trailer remarked that the musician would “have you in a dither with his zither”, which is simultaneously incredible and awful. Among its fans was reportedly a young Princess Margaret, while more modern admirers include Blondie’s Debby Harry.
While Karas became a sensation, he wasn’t comfortable with being a celebrity, and so quickly retreated to a quiet life in Austria, taking time out to occasionally perform for royalty or go on tour. His score for The Third Man routinely appears in lists of the best movie music ever, and to think, if Reed hadn’t wandered into that specific bar on that day, we would have never known his name or had his gift grace popular culture.
