The Third-Man-Museum in Vienna is a privately run museum dedicated to the movie 'The Third Man' which was shot in the ruins of Vienna in 1948.
It was in the year 1948 when a lot of police cars rushed through the ruined streets of Vienna hunting a man who was going to hid himself in the canal system of the city.
Though this was a very common scene in the days of the black market in post-war Vienna there was another reason this time. It was a scene of one of the most famous classic movies ever.
I speak about the movie 'The Third Man' a British film noir directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli. And not to forget featuring a music which topped the international music charts in 1950.
But lets come to something different. After a visit at the collection of music instruments at the Hofburg in Vienna I wrote a small note about the pieces which I had seen there. For example about a zither which was told to me to be used in the movie 'The Third Man'.
Some days later I got a mail by the owner of the Third-Man-Museum Mr. Gerhard Strassgschwandtner, telling me, the real zither which was used in the movie would be displayed in its museum in Vienna.
So I had a good reason to visit the museum in the Pressgasse 25, not far away from the famous Naschmarkt in Vienna. A museum with ten rooms, located in an old apartment house, each room dedicated to a different aspect of the movie.
The most interesting rooms for me were about the music, about the zither of Anton Karas, about a collection of posters and as an interesting addition about the post war Vienna.
So what did I see there? Of course there were a lot of photos and signed portraits of the stars besides programs and campaign books of the movie itself.
But probably the most admirers of the movie love the tune which was played by Anton Karas on its zither. At an audio terminal I was able to browse through 400 cover versions of this Harry Lime Theme.
And there was the zither. As the owner of the museum was able to buy a part of the estate of Anton Karas he showed me proudly that instrument which was really used in London for composing and recording the famous music.
In another room decorated with a lot of fantastic posters I had also the chance to see a small sequence of the movie with an historic cinema projector 'Ernemann 7b' from 1936, which was actually used for this movie in 1950 in Vienna.
In the last rooms I saw a wide range of original documents and newspapers illustrating the daily life in the Vienna of 1948 between all these bombed out buildings, the black market and the demarcation lines.
By the way during my walk through the museum I had an interesting talk with the owner of the collection. We spoke not only about how to get all these pieces but also about the meaning and influence of the movie in the years of the beginning cold war.
So there were some political aspects to take this movie in Vienna where people had to deal with soldiers of four nations. In this way the producer were able to show the differences between the behaviour of the Western soldiers and the Russian soldiers. From the view of the Western Allied of course...
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Website of the Third-Man-Museum