The Third Man walketh.
Carol Reed's 1949 film version of Graham Greene's The Third Man might well be as forgotten today as his version of Greene's The Fallen Idol if it weren't for two things: Orson Welles' portrayal of Harry Lime, of course, and Anton Karas' zither.
Reed encountered Karas playing his zither in a Vienna cafe while he was scouting locations for the film, and hired him to score the entire film. Zither music, Reed felt, would provide the film with precisely the jaunty, old world, street-level atmosphere he was looking for. He even opened The Third Man with a close-up of the zither's strings vibrating as the theme is being played. It was one of those rare instances in which the score itself becomes a character. This was surprising, given that Karas had never written film music before. It was a good instinct on Reed's part?Karas' "Harry Lime Theme" (aka "The Third Man Theme") went on to become one of the most recognizable pieces of film music ever recorded.
Despite that, Third Man soundtrack albums have been rare?and usually of poor quality. Back in 2000, something called the "50th Anniversary Soundtrack Recording" was released on some fly-by-night label. But when people got it home and slapped it on the stereo, what they heard was a soundtrack recording, yes?but a soundtrack recording with dialogue and sound effects, together with the music. It was almost as if someone had simply recorded it off his television, then released it as a CD. Ohh, that pissed people off!
In a way, this new Silva disc isn't exactly an original soundtrack, but it's a damn sight better than the "50th Anniversary" debacle.
The Silva disc features a new digital recording of Gertrud Huber playing the zither. According to the liner notes, no sheet music was available for some of the incidental music, so someone had to sit down with the film and transcribe the music that was playing beneath the dialogue. The results?virtually every note of music heard in the film?are about as close to accurate and original as we're bound to get.
The enhanced CD also contains video of Ms. Huber performing "The Harry Lime Theme" (for those with the technology to view it), as well as orchestral versions of both the theme and the waltz that's playing in the Cafe Mozart scene. The liner notes are very good, too.
I could leave it at that and you'd know pretty much what you were getting, but a couple things about this CD are nagging at me.
Now, I love The Third Man, I love Karas' theme?I even wrote my own lyrics for it about two years ago!?but this, much as I hate to say it, was just a little too much. After the third or fourth listen, I was about ready to scream. As my girlfriend pointed out, "There is such a thing as too much zither."
This isn't Silva's fault, of course?or Karas'. And there are people in the world who will be as overjoyed to find this record as I was at first. But after, what, an hour or more of zither music? Most of it variations on the same theme? Jesus! And again, I have nothing against the zither per se?it was just too damned much at once, is all.
Apart from the zither overload, there is one other thing about the album that drove me a little nuts: the dialogue snippets.
When I was a kid and first began collecting soundtrack albums, I was thrilled to come across one that included some dialogue. Those were always rare finds. The soundtrack albums for Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Night of the Living Dead, Apocalypse Now?they all contained dialogue, and I was very happy they did. But those were in the days before VCRs and DVDs. Now if you want to hear a particular line, all you need do is hit a button and there you are. You don't want to be subjected to it after every third or fourth cut on what is otherwise essentially a solo zither album. What's more, the cuts they chose here are poorly edited, and odd. I'm not sure who did the picking, but most of them involve Holly sniping with Inspector Calloway?and the Harry Lime clip is split into three parts (all from the ferris wheel scene), with the middle part missing.
It's useless and frustrating and in the end, little more than an annoyance.
But that's just me. Again, there will be people who, with good reason, will be tickled to pick this up. The performance is superb, the sound quality is impeccable, and none of the dialogue snippets interfere with the music. Myself, though, next time I want to hear a little zither music, I think I'll pick up one of Mr. Karas' solo albums instead. I'm sure I'll be able to find a three-minute version of "The Harry Lime Theme" on damn near all of them.