The Third Man Theme after the film's premiere, and more than half a million copies of "The Third Man Theme" record were sold within weeks of the film's release. The tune was originally released in the U.K. in 1949, where it was known as "The Harry Lime Theme". Following its release in the U.S. in 1950 (see 1950 in music), "The Third Man Theme" spent 11 weeks at number one on "Billboard"'s U.S. Best Sellers in Stores chart, from April 29 to July 8. Its success led to a trend in releasing film theme music as singles. A guitar version by Guy Lombardo also
The Adventures of Harry Lime office, demanding to be paid for the scripts which "he" had ghostwritten for Welles. When Welles was asked about it later, he smiled: "Don't pay him. They weren't very good scripts." The episodes which were adapted into short stories were: Welles also tried to convert one episode script into a film script for producer Alexander Korda. When that fell through, the story was adapted into a novel and published in France as "Une Grosse Légume" in 1953. The novel was ghostwritten by Maurice Bessy and published under Welles's name. It has never been published in English. The Adventures of Harry