Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Cinema Still Life: Where's the Orchestra?


Carol Reed supervises Anton Karas who provided the entire musical score for the film, The Third Man, with this one instrument, the zither. The "Harry Lime Theme" sold over half a million copies in its first month and made Karas a star but alas, his popularity was not to last. He was unpopular in his home of Vienna because he had gained his success with a film that portrayed a defeated, divided Vienna. Geez. And every follow-up he did essentially flopped. But he had that one song and it was enough that he could retire a millionaire. If you'd like to read up on the whole story of Karas and how Reed stumbled across him here's a nice bio from allmusic.com.

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