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One of my most
cherished musical pleasures is accompanying silent films. My
drive for complete
authenticity when
creating silent films scores is motivated by my deep love,
appreciation, and
commitment to the
artistic and musical culture of the silent film era.
There are many ways to
provide musical accompaniment to silent films, but I have
adopted
the following
philosophy:
The experience of
watching a silent film today is enhanced when the
accompaniment reproduces
to the greatest extent
possible the style of accompaniment that the film in question
would have
received in its day by
the best cinema musicians.
Accordingly, a film
that was released in December 1926, for instance, deserves to
have a musical
accompaniment that is
exactly like the accompaniment that a fine cinema pianist or
organist would
have given it in
December 1926. This means that all the music used in compiling
the score will have
been published prior to
December 1926. I find this approach deeply satisfying because
it honors the
silent film and shows
the deepest respect for the era in which the film was
produced. This approach
enables modern
audiences to imagine that they have been transported back in
time. Thus, not only
can they enjoy the film
on its own merits, but they can experience the added richness
of a live
musical recreation.
I compile scores for
silent films exactly the same way that cinema pianists and
organists compiled
scores back in the days
of silent films. There is really no mystery to it. Movie
studios frequently
hired composers and
arrangers to produce thematic cue sheets, which were issued
with each film and
distributed to cinema
musicians. These thematic cue sheets told the pianist what to
play and when to
play it. The "cue" in
"cue sheet" was a point in the film that signaled the musician
that it was time to
change the music in
order to support effectively the shifting action on the
screen. I am very fortunate
to have a large
collection of original cue sheets for silent films. In those
instances where I do not have
an original thematic
cue sheet for a film that I have been hired to accompany, I
create my own cue
sheet modeled on the
same pattern used for published sheets, using a mixture of
classical music,
semi-classical, and
popular songs.
Here is an example of
the first page of a thematic cue sheet for the Paramount film
The Popular Sin,
which was released on
22 November 1926.
The musical cues for
silent films were a mixture of classical music, semi-classical
music, and popular
songs. Each would be
chosen because the piece fitted the mood and supported the
action on the screen.
Popular songs in the
compiled score had an added significance because mass
audiences during the
silent era would have
been expected to recognize the song's title and to know its
lyrics. The musician
could convey additional
information to the audience through the clever selection of a
popular tune for
a particular moment in
the film. For instance, if the pianist starts to play the hit
song "Too Many
Parties and Too Many
Pals" when a particular lady enters the scene in the film, the
audience instantly
knows what sort of lady
this is.
Music publishers also
stepped in to make the job of the cinema pianist simple by
publishing volumes
of generic film music
to fit a variety of scenes and moods. Publishing houses
commissioned the best
film music composers of
the silent era to write folios of film music. Composers who
published such
volumes include J.S.
Zamecnik, Dr. William Axt, Irenée Bergé, David
Mendoza, and Albert W. Ketelbey.
Many of these composers
went on to compose scores for talking pictures and were
considered the best
in the business. My
music library also includes many volumes of this nature. They
are enormously useful
in compiling authentic
silent film scores.
In addition to these
musical sources, music publishers published songs that were
intended to commemorate,
popularize, and figure
into the accompaniment of silent films. Many of these songs
were written by the
composer of the
published compiled score. For instance, J.S. Zamecnik wrote
the compiled score for the
1927 Paramount film Wings and also the popular song
commemorating the film. When I accompany a
silent film, I always
work into my compiled score any popular songs written for the
film. These songs make
wonderfully appropriate
opening numbers for the title sequence of a film.
These then, are the
musical sources that I use to compile an historically
accurate, respectful, and exciting
score for the silent
films that I accompany.
Feature Length
Film Scores
The Ace of Hearts (1921)
Arms and the Girl (1917)
Atlantis (1913)
The Battle of the Sexes
(1928)
Blackmail (1929)
Blonde or Brunette (1927)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(1919)
The Canadian (1926)
Chicago (1927)
The Circus (1928)
The Circus Man (1914)
Clash of the Wolves (1925)
The Crackerjack (1925)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1925)
Destiny (1921)
Dollars and Sense (1920)
The Duchess of Buffalo (1926)
The Eagle (1925)
Free to Love (1925)
The General (1927)
Gigolo (1926)
The Great K & A Train Robbery (1926)
Greed (1922)
Hands Up! (1926)
The Heart o’ the Hills (1919)
Hell's Hinges (1916)
The High Sign (1917)
Hot Water (1924)
The Iron Horse (1924)
It (1927)
Keno Bates, Liar (1915)
The Kid (1921)
Ladies Night in a Turkish
Bath (1928)
Little Annie Rooney (1925)
The Lost Express (1926)
The Lost World (1925)
The Lucky Devil (1925)
The Night Cry (1926)
The Night Patrol (1926)
The Nut (1921)
Old Heidelberg (1927)
Old Ironsides (1926)
Old San Francisco (1927)
Orchids and Ermine (1927)
Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Outside the Law (1921)
Passing Fancy (Dekigokoro) (1933)
Paths To Paradise (1925)
Peck’s Bad Boy (1921)
Peter Pan (1924)
Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Power (1928)
The Pride of the Clan (1917)
The Prisoner of Zenda
(1922)
Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917)
Reaching for the Moon (1919)
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917)
Reggie Mixes In (1916)
The Roaring Road (1919)
The Royal Pauper (1917)
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
The Secret Game (1917)
Sensation Seekers (1927)
The Sheik (1921)
Shoulder Arms (1918)
Show People (1928)
The Sign on the Door (1921)
Sky High (1922)
Son of the Sheik (1926)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
Stella Dallas (1925)
Storm over Asia (1928)
Tempest (1928)
The Three Ages (1923)
Tol'able David (1921)
Underworld (1927)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Unknown (1927)
The Unknown Soldier (1926)
The Untamed (1920)
Up The Ladder (1925)
Upstream (1927)
The Valley of the Giants
(1927)
Victory (1919)
When the Clouds Roll by
(1919)
Where the North Begins (1923)
The Whistle (1921)
Wild and Wooly (1917)
Wings (1927)
A Woman of the World (1925)
The Wrecker (1929)
Young Romance (1915)
Excuse My Dust (1920) Score
recorded December 2005 for DVD
issued by Unknown
Video. Produced by Christopher Snowden.
Contents:
1. A
Country Cupid (Biograph, July 24, 1911).
Directed
by D.W. Griffith. Starring Blance Sweet and Edna Foster.
2. The
Adventures
Of Billy (Biograph, October 19, 1911).
Directed
by D.W. Griffith. Starring Donald Crisp and Edna Foster.
3. The
Charge
Of The Light Brigade (Edison, October 11, 1912).
Directed
by J. Searle Dowley. Starring Ben Wilson.
4. The
Egyptian
Mummy (Vitagraph, December 16, 1914).
Directed
by Lee Beegs. Starring Billy Quirk, Constance Talmadge, Lee
Beggs, Joel Day.
5. In
The Tennessee Hills (Kay-Bee, February 12, 1915)
Produced
by Thomas Ince. Directed by James Vincent. Starring Charles
Ray, Enid Markey, Clyde Tracy.
6. Broncho
Billy's
Sentence (Essanay, February 13, 1915)
Directed
by G.M. Anderson. Starring G.M. Anderson, Carl Stockdale,
Virginia True Boardman.
BONUS:
Broncho Billy's Niles, California: Then and
Now.
Contents:
1. Idle
Eyes (Weiss Brothers Artclass, 1928).
Directed by Leslie
Goodwins. Starring Ben Turpin, Billy Barty, and Helen Gilmore.
2. Just
Rambling
Along (Rolin Film Company, November 3, 1918).
Directed by Hal Roach.
Starring Stan Laurel, Clarine Seymour, and Noah Young.
3. The
Janitor (Morris R. Schlank, 1918).
Starring Hank Mann and
Madge Kirby
4. All
Jazzed
Up (Christie Film Company, January 10, 1920).
Starring Bobby Vernon and
Helen Darling.
5. The
Bath
Dub (Reelcraft, January 1921)
Directed by Thomas La
Rose. Starring Billy Franey
6. The
Big
Idea (Hal Roach Studios, January 13, 1924)
Directed by George Jeske.
Starring Snub Pollard, Blanche Mehaffey, George Rowe, and Billy
Engle.
7. A
Prodigal Bridegroom (Mack Sennett Productions, September
26, 1926)
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
and Earle Rodney. Starring Ben Turpin, Thelma Hill, and Madeline
Hurlock
BONUS:
A Lightning Round of Rare Ben Turpin Clips
(1915-1932) and a Photo Gallery of Mugshots.