Could you imagine "Casablanca" in colour? Me neither! In the preface to his book "The Third Man" Graham Greene wrote, "'The Third Man was never written to be read but only to be seen", to which he might've added "... in black-and-white".
Imagine my surprise when I discovered this colourised version. YUCK! So here is the original version in glorious black-and-white "colours" with its haunting "Harry Lime Theme" written and performed by Anton Karas:
And who could ever forget Harry Lime saying, "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Graham Greene, who co-wrote the script with director Carol Reed, said that it was "the best line of the film" and that Welles wrote it. Welles recalled, "When the picture came out, the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they’ve never made any cuckoo clocks — they all come from the Schwarzwald in Bavaria!"
If you listen to the audiobook, you may notice many differences between the story and the film. Don't imagine these changes were forced on an unwilling author: as likely as not they were suggested by him. The film in fact is better than the story because it is in this case the finished state of the story, not least because of its soundtrack.
Of course, if you're like me, you'll never get tired of the movie's original soundtrack which reminds me of my childhood in Germany when, with the city in ruins and an accute housing shortage, we were forced to share our small two-bedroom apartment with two Bavarian musicians who earned their living by playing their zithers in a nearby beerhall. "The Third Man Theme", also known as "The Harry Lime Theme", was part of their repertoire which they often practised when at our home.
Some memories stay with you forever!
