The Third Man

It's about sixty years since "The Third Man" film was made; O yes, I remember it well. It used to be one of my favourite films. But something happened that made me not wish to see it again, and that something was that I got fed up with the musical soundtrack. All those years ago the sound of the zither seemed apt for the setting of the film - Vienna after WW2; it gave an authentic taste to the place. Now, however, it grates on my nerves. I suppose I could watch the film with sound turned off and subtitles turned on but then, of course, I'd miss the voices of such wonderful actors as Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles.
What a scene that is in the Prater Wheel where Harry Lime looks down at the little ants of people and reflects on how insignificant they are; and then this: "In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo de Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
I'm not sure if that argument holds. Was the birth and artistic development of Michelangelo directly affected by war, terror, murder and bloodshed? Mmm!
I heard once that Graham Greene who wrote the script of the film did not actually write the above lines, that they were written by Orson Welles himself.
Welles said, later, when the film appeared: "the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they've never made any cuckoo clocks."
I was glad to hear that the film made the zither player famous after being a mere cafe entertainer; but the music still makes my teeth grate.