Music and Features

At the end of March 1913, James McQuade, contributing editor of Moving Picture World in the Chicago office, printed a letter from the manager of a film exchange in St. Louis that argued many exhibitors were not treating their features in a suitable fashion. In particular, the letter argues that features should be handled more like theatrical productions, with careful selection and rehearsal of appropriate music for the dramas. The letter is interesting not only for its advocacy of better music for features but also with its account of what constituted normal musical practice for live theater: "nearly every theater devoted to the spoken drama has an adequate orchestra for the enhancement of the play." For the author adding music, then, was akin to treating the feature film in line with the expectations of a theatrical presentation.

The following article, contributed by Mr. Cotter, manager of the Universal Film Exchange of St. Louis, is timely and shows a careful study of present conditions in the film industry, especially in the Independent field:

“In the history of the film business, there has never been a time when the public demand for high-class subjects was so imperious and persistent as the present. Several years ago, one feature a week was welcomed by the exhibitor. Times have changed. With the fierce competition of the various manufacturing companies, there has come into the field a persistent demand for features. This demand has become so insistent, that it behooves manufacturers, who are striving for the betterment of the business, to take cognizance of this condition, and produce pictures which are up to the standard created by the advanced artistry and perfection of detail, which distinguish the productions of the best producers.

“That good features pay, has been demonstrated time and again; still the mass of exhibitors seem oblivious of the tremendous possibilities presented when a great feature is shown. In this respect the value of appropriate music cannot be too strongly emphasized. For instance, nearly every theater devoted to the spoken drama has an adequate orchestra for the enhancement of the play. Why cannot exhibitors see the advantage of having correct and appropriate music, rehearsed with the same care and attention that is bestowed upon the melodic accompaniment of the spoken drama? The value of appropriate music can scarcely be estimated in, for instance, such photoplays as “Dante’s Inferno” or “Satan,” or in great plays like “As in a Looking Glass,” with Marion Leonard, which, by the way, broke all records for a feature in this city last week. Of course the exhibitor will say that this will entail more expense. But will not increased patronage more than offset this condition? In other words: make the feature picture a FEATURE in every sense. It is time for exhibitors to realize that the feature in the world of entertainment, has attained a rank of rivaling in importance the great productions of the dramatic world, and they should endeavor to enhance their offerings with the same care as to detail and musical accompaniment that is bestowed upon their more ancient rival. As to the manufacturers, the sooner they realize that the day of the wild and woolly, and the insipid has passed, and that real, vital subjects are the demand of the hour, the sooner the film will cease to be an adjunct to cheap vaudeville, and will be regarded as sufficient in itself and command the patronage it deserves.

“Another thing: the manufacturers who are now releasing films of one-reel subjects to the various exchanges throughout the country, are doubtless equipped and furnished with the material to produce really high-class subjects, such as are in urgent demand. Why not a feature each day in their daily program, thus saving the exhibitor an inordinate amount of trouble, and anxiety, in securing his daily feature program from two or more exchanges? The insistent demand for the BEST subjects shows the healthy trend of public taste; but a high standard can only be maintained by the intelligent co-operation of both manufacturers and exhibitors.”

Source: Ja[me]s S. McQuade, “Chicago Letter,” Moving Picture World 29 March 1913, 1322.

Film Music in Concert

Variety reports on a recent surge of symphony orchestras programming film scores.

October alone is jammed with major film music events across the nation. Today in Anaheim, Calif., a 58-city tour of the arena show "Star Wars: In Concert" kicks off at the Honda Center. On Friday and Saturday (Oct. 9-10), New York's Radio City Music Hall will play host to nearly 300 musicians and singers performing Howard Shore's "Fellowship of the Ring" score live while the three-hour film unspools.

In the Emerald City, the Seattle Symphony will play Bernard Herrmann's "Psycho" score live to the Hitchcock picture Oct. 29-31 in Benaroya Hall.

And in greater L.A., John Williams will conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an all-film music concert Oct. 16-18, and John Mauceri will perform an all-Disney music program Oct. 20, both at Walt Disney Concert Hall; the Golden State Pops Orchestra will devote most of its Oct. 24 program to music from both incarnations of "Battlestar Galactica" at the Warner Grand theater in San Pedro, Calif.; and Ennio Morricone will make his West Coast debut at the Hollywood Bowl Oct. 25.

Lest we think this is more of the same (film scores have been a staple of pop concerts for decades), the report ends with this:

The Chicago and Cleveland Symphony Orchestras (two of the so-called Big Five, which also include New York, L.A. and Boston) have added film music concerts to their [regular] subscription lineups in recent years, suggesting that film music may finally be moving away from the pop-concert ghetto.

Click through to the Variety article for some good quotes from David Neumann, Richard Kaufman, John Goberman and John Waxman.

(H/T Kristin Thompson)

Len. Spencer's Lyceum, ad, 1907

Here is an ad for an service bureau that provided an exchange for song slides and music as well as a booking agency for operators and musicians. The name of the agency "Len. Spencer's Lyceum" tells us that it had its origin in the lyceum circuit, which would book entertainments of lectures and other educational programming for theaters. That the agency was now branching out into motion pictures suggests that the lines between entertainments were not firm. Indeed, at the time (1907), lecturers had been regularly featuring motion pictures on their programs for almost a decade, and many moving picture houses featured short illustrated lectures as entr'actes between reels (as an alternative to the illustrated song) and had begun using lecturers to help explain the increasingly complicated stories of the films.

Click for a larger image.

Source: Moving Picture World 27 July 1907, 330.

Selecting Appropriate Music for the Film

This is Berg's second column of Exhibitor's Trade Review. Notice that once again he is concerned about "overplaying" and about music not distracting from the film. Here, he also worries about how to make proper transitions from one number to the next so that an impression of continuity can be maintained.

Selecting Appropriate Music for the Film
Takes Skilled Musicianship and Experience

The purpose of this Department will be primarily to assist the musician in the solution of the thousand and one problems which arise in the course of his daily work. A difficulty to one musician is a difficulty to another, and if you will write your troubles, an answer through these columns will be promptly given.

How to Improvise, Selection of Music, The Organ, Instrumentation of Orchestras, etc., will be a few of the subjects dealt with in these columns.

Hardly a day passes without some inquiry on what music to play for the film, and in all my ears of experience, I have never been able to answer this question to my own satisfaction, let alone the satisfaction of the correspondents. The reason for this is that one cannot judge the ability of a correspondent as a performer, from the inquiry. As an example, I recall a few months ago, I was asked to recommend a player of the film, a list of suitable music, bearing in mind a moderate expense as the position was not a high salaried one. I replied by asking he character of music the correspondent was able to perform, and learned such compositions as Chopin, Grieg, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, etc. On receipt of this answer I recommended a series of Albums containing threes composers’ works. Time elapsed and I received a letter from the publishing house I referred this customer to, telling me the entire collection of music which I had advised sending, had been returned, and that the postage had not even been paid. I heard later that the customer liked the music, but really wanted simplified editions.

Of course, there is the other side where the orchestra is composed of qualified musicians who are able to render with taste almost any composition before them. Fortunately for all, the industry has taken rapid strides. Good salaries are being paid so that meritorious musicians are now being attracted, and find the work congenial and entertaining. A serious fault, however, with qualified musicians is the difference in opinion as to the interpretation of the music. I do not mean the phrasing or temporizing, but the character of the selected music performed as a musical interpretation of the action displayed on the screen. Experience is the one needed requirement which qualifies a man for sound judgment on this work.

A few months ago, a new motion picture theatre was opened with a daily change of program. A well-known New York director was engaged as leader of an orchestra of 18 musicians. He possessed an extraordinarily large library of music and deservedly was acknowledged to be a qualified musician and director, but as a director of music for the film he was a total failure. His previous work for anumber of years had been as leader for a first-class hotel concert orchestra, where a number is performed and then a ten-minute intermission elapses. The real reason for his failure was in changing his selections according to the action of the film, and synchronizing.

There is not one per cent of leaders who give this important phrase of the work sufficient thought and attention. Within a few weeks I hope to be able to deal very thoroughly in these columns on this important subject of Music for the Film. Nothing is more distressful than to sit through a picture and listen to the music when every two or three minutes you hear the director tap his stand, the orchestra stop and start another composition. Earnest training of his musicians by the director can overcome this difficulty, especially where organ and orchestra is available. The solution is, of course: subdue the orchestra, cut the brass, then wood, and have the organist modulate by one or two chords to the next number. A little practice will conclusively prove that this is practical and will at the same time avoid distracting the attention of your audience from the picture.

Source: S. M. Berg, “Music for the Photoplay,” Exhibitor's Trade Review 16 December 1916, 138.

Better Music for the Film

This is S. M. Berg's inaugural column for Exhibitor's Trade Review. Prior to his work for ETR, Berg had helped Clarence E. Sinn on the music column in Moving Picture World. He will in fact recycle a number of his contributions to MPW in "Music for the Photoplay."

Better Music for the Film Means Bigger
Box Office Receipts and Pleased Patrons

No phase of the motion picture industry can develop greater problems than those which music brings forth.

Although I claim ten years’ association with music for the film, every day seems to bring difficulties which only earnest thought overcomes. The film never helps the musician, but always demands continued service from him. Not so with the directors.

The manufacturers place at the disposal of directors every facility in the way of costumes, settings, elaborately fitted studios, and yet much in the film is left to the imagination of an audience, which must be overcome by the musical interpretation. Frequently the locale is hard to discover, were it not for subtitles added to the film. I recall an instance of this kind in a picture made in California, the scene being an officer dressed in military uniform, seated in a hut with a negro servant waving a palm leaf over him. This could have represented a situation in almost any country with a warm climate but the sub-title read “The Burning Sands of India.” An orchestra later playing this picture in a theatre, showed good judgment by using a weird Indian number, the melody being carried by oboe with tom-tom accompaniment, resulting in the scene getting over the audience.

Picture a woman quietly seated by her fireside thoroughly engrossed in a piece of embroidery—flash of an exterior—suspicious character lurking around who tries a window to force an entrance—flash interior scene—woman hears noise, turns and sees hand from behind curtain, registers fear and emotion. If during such a situation, a number is played by the orchestra that musically interprets this action, the fear portrayed on the screen will be felt by the audience. Any efforts made by manager or musician cannot be too great to musically play the picture but yet in the same breath must come the warning “Do not overplay.”

A reasonable inquiry would be “What is overplaying?” and the answer should be: “Distracting the audience’s attention by the music predominating. Here is an entirely new phase of music for the film. If one is fortunate enough to be a patron of the opera, how frequently does one find the orchestra ‘drowns the singer,’ due to overzealousness of the conductor.

Every large city today has its Strand, Regent, or Rialto where colossal organ and symphony orchestra are a feature of the advertising and in my reports on visits to many of these houses, it is with reluctance that I must recount that overzealousness and overplaying are predominant. The happy medium is the end that should earnestly be striven after.

In a discussion with a well known manager, a few days ago, who is running quite a large sized house but depends on his music for piano and organ only. I remonstrated with him that he should get a small orchestra, and received the answer, “If I cannot get a big one I’ll stick to what I have got.” Such is the situation today in music for the film and yet it is certainly a pleasure to review the enormous strides which have been made in this branch of work in the past few years. It seems but yesterday in my earlier days, when I too was playing the film and engaging other musicians, that I was frequently answered: “What, I play in a movie theatre?” I can assure my readers that this was no uncommon experience. Strides we all have made but we still have with us horrible examples of non-progressiveness.

As before stated, that music for the film daily brings forward problems that appear insurmountable, I have made a practice of consistently visiting theatres that I may learn pointers to pass on to others interested in the development of this work.

During the past week I visited a theater which here shall be nameless, located in the extreme up-town district of Broadway, New York. The management advertise a change of program on Monday, Thursday and Sunday, together with four big acts of vaudeville. The house is a spacious, modern theatre, with a seating capacity of about 2,000. Price of admission are 10-15-20 cents and boxes 25 cents. The orchestra consists of four musicians, the instrumentation being piano director, violin, cornet and drums. I entered the theatre on a Saturday night at about 8:15 and noticed it was about one-third filled. A foreign musical vaudeville act was on the boards and the orchestra was out of the pit, the act playing its own accompaniment. As the act closed, the orchestra drifted in. When the applause died our, the pianist improvised on the last song that had been rendered, which was “Marie-Marie,” an Italian ditty. The cornet player tried to follow and ignominiously failed. A minute elapsed and when the curtain rose again, a trio of voices was heard off-stage, followed by a singing and talking act with a good deal more talking than singing, so that the orchestra was certainly not overworked. The screen was dropped at the close of this act and the World Film release, The Heart of a Hero,” featuring Robert Warwick, was offered. The picture was released on November 6, and this incident happened on November 11, so the theatre practically was a first run house.

“The Heart of a Hero” depicts the life of Nathan Hale, the great American patriot, whose last words when about to be hanged were, “I only regret I have but one life to lose for my country.” Readers will realize that here s a story demanding every assistance of music and any serious attempt to present this picture with a fitting musical accompaniment would stir the emotions of an American audience. The following is a truthful account of how this was musically presented.

Immediately at the close of the act, as the screen was lowered, the musicians turned out their lights, three of them left the pit, leaving the pianist, who started out playing one of Bohm’s second grade compositions full of arpeggios. This went on for the whole of the first reel. As that neared the end, he repeatedly struck top “A” of the piano several times as sort of a call to the rest of the musicians. They returned to the pit and the drummer distributed a piece of music which happened to be a “Valse Lento” popular two or three years ago, which they continued to play for seven or eight minutes. Then the lights were turned out, again they left the pit with the exception of the drummer who took his place at the piano and improvised for about one-half a reel. Once again the orchestra returned and as the third reel was projected, started in with a selection of the Count of Hoffman which was played from beginning to end.

My patience was exhausted. I left my seat and sought the manager of the house. Introducing myself, I candidly told him the music presented with this patriotic picture was a joke. His reply was: “Yes, I realize that my music is not all that it should be. I have only been manager of this house for one month, during which time I have been forced to change my orchestra twice, and these men now playing have only been with me a week. I know what music should be, because I was assistant to Mr. Rothapfel at the Regent Theatre long before the Strand was built, and many was the time I was kept until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, making a musical setting for the pictures. Perhaps you recall,” continued the manager, “‘Quo Vadis.’ That was one that I worked very hard on. Our difficulty now in this house is to find musicians that will play the vaudeville and also the pictures.”

When this strain of argument was given me, I realized that “discretion was the better part of valor,” and left the theatre because I felt convinced that I expressed what was in my mind, I would possible have been thrown out. This instance appears to be the most flagrant case of negligence that I have ever discovered. Here is a man that served his apprenticeship to the King of the Motion Picture Exhibitors, S. L. Rothapfel, and who openly confessed that he has been robbed of his nights’ sleep in preparing the next day’s work, but yet on his own initiative allows such an inspiring American picture as “The Heart of a Hero,” to be blasphemed by a musical interpretation such as we rendered in his house.

To my thinking this substantially accounts for the house being but one-third filled on a Saturday night in the heart of a Broadway residential district in Greater New York.

Many on reading the above account will possibly accuse me of exaggeration, while some will answer, “Well, this man is playing the penalty of his lack of attention to the music by his poorly patronized house,” but there is still another phase which is worthy of the manufacturers’ consideration. This house is a first run theatre. Possibly the same picture may be booked a few days later in another theatre in the neighborhood. Friends of the patrons who visited the first run theatre might ask the question “How is the ‘Heart of a Hero’? I am going down to see it tonight.” The answer logically would be: “I don’t think much of it,” so that both the film company and the second theatre who played the picture suffer from another’s negligence.

It is pleasure to recall that many of the producing companies realize the importance of music to the film, and have come into line to provide some help to both the player and exhibitor in this work. Sincere co-operation on the part of musicians and manager on behalf of music for the film, will recompense one and all in the end they are striving for, namely, box office receipts and satisfied patrons.

Source: S. M Berg, “Music for the Photoplay,” Exhibitor's Trade Review 9 December 1916, 62.

Music and Transcendence in The Shawshank Redemption

Stephen King's novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" is a dark romance that sets genres incongruously beside another—the hard-boiled realist prison novel and the nineteenth-century "escape" adventure novel (there is even a trace of the coming-to-age narrative, although in the warped sense of men coming to terms with the realities of life imprisonment). The protagonist Andy is falsely imprisoned for the murder of his wife. Only in the last two and a half pages of the ninety-five-page novella does the story suddenly come open, as the second protagonist, Red, is paroled and decides to follow up Andy's hints on how to join him in Mexico. In the feature film version, The Shawshank Redemption (1994; musical score by Thomas Newman), this corresponds to the last minutes of the film. Although both novella and film place the center of attention on Andy (Tim Robbins), the novella is written from the first-person perspective of Red (Morgan Freeman), who is now offered a deus ex machina, thanks to Andy's persistence and intelligence.

The novella ends there, with Red's hope that he can indeed find escape, but the film goes further to show us (to imagine?) the realization of that hope, and it is at this moment that the film's main theme, a simple melody, resists the old cliché of a descending close, which it has followed several times earlier, and instead reaches out and up to end on a high note just as Red, still absorbing the demonstration of Andy's generosity and loyalty, speaks of things "only a free man can feel." (The two versions are shown in musical notation below.) Two markedly different iterations of this transcendent, utopian gesture immediately follow in confirmation, and the film comes to an end with the two men greeting each other on a pristine, isolated beach as credits begin to roll, superimposed.




update

JB here: I found the clip on You Tube.