Anton Karas members of the British Royal family. Princess Margaret invited him to London's fashionable "Empress Club", where he played twice a week during his stay at London. He also appeared before Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, members of the Swedish royal family, and Pope Pius XII. By the end of 1949, half a million copies of "The Harry Lime Theme" had been sold, an unprecedented number for the time. The success of the score also caused a surge in zither sales. In Austria, the film opened on 10 March 1950, in Vienna's Apollo Kino, and it initially offended some Viennese inhabitants,
Anton Karas many of the British element of the Allied Control Commission for Austria. Robert Baty, the young son of the Director of Education, C.W. Baty, was given the task of showing the director around the city. On the second day they stopped at a "Heuriger", a wine tavern where growers offer their own wines for sale directly, and heard Karas playing the zither in the background. This is described in Karas' L.A. Times/Reuters obituary which states that: Reed, desperately searching for a theme tune ... chanced on the tavern in Vienna's Grinzing wine-growing district. Struck by the simple zither melodies, Reed