Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Everett Collection 
In the early 20th century, audiences crammed into theaters to see silent films accompanied by piano, organ, or orchestra. This film starred William S. Hart. 

Do you ever think about what an art it was to accompany a silent film? At the website Atlas Obscura, Jessica Leigh Hester has a great post about people who crave the experience today.

“Sitting at a Steinway piano in near-darkness, Bernie Anderson flicks his eyes between the keys and a movie screen. Over his right shoulder, nearly all of the 203 seats in the Bruno Walter Auditorium on New York’s Upper West Side are full.

“These enthusiastic viewers have escaped the biting January wind for a screening of the ‘Silent Clowns’ film series. Anderson is set off in a corner of the stage, so as not to distract from the daring, hapless antics. His fingers fly and flutter, and give the cinematic shenanigans an extra dimension.

“He gamely tackles One Week, a 1920 short starring Buster Keaton, in which the master of physical comedy constructs a home from a do-it-yourself kit. It’s no spoiler to say that it doesn’t go well. The porch roof leans, and the windows are askew. When the house needs to be relocated, it gets lodged on some railroad tracks along the way. Anderson’s live melodies invigorate the charming foibles.

“The music is amiable when Keaton strolls with his new bride. When a storm spins Keaton’s sorry house around, Anderson’s playing evokes a vortex — swirling and insistent. The sound grows frenzied as a train finally reduces the slapdash home to splinters.

“The audience is devouring the century-old hijinks of the bill’s four comedic shorts. Laughter erupts regularly, gut-deep and contagious. ‘Oh nuts! Nuts!’ one man chortles when Laurel and Hardy tread, theatrically, on a heap of nails in The Finishing Touch. Other viewers can’t stop themselves from swapping corny puns as the gags pile up. ‘He got plastered,’ someone whispers to a friend as paint and glue cover a character’s face like meringue. …

“The phrase ‘silent film’ is, of course, a misnomer. Screenings of the 1920s were hardly quiet. The soundtrack for any given showing depended, in large part, on the setting. At deluxe movie palaces, films were often accompanied by entire symphony orchestras. …

“What they played varied by movie and musician. An orchestra conductor might rifle through a large library of sheet music to compile a patchwork score, [Scott Eyman, author of The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926–1930] notes.

“Some were dashed off quickly, [and] sounded predictably derivative or cheesy. Tawdrier examples relied on snippets of familiar tunes to do some heavy thematic lifting, such as walloping viewers with ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ when a train barreled past.

“As an alternative, a conductor or individual accompanist might rely on a cue sheet. … One for another Keaton film, Sherlock Jr., for instance, primes accompanists to stay tuned for the moments when a ‘man buys a box of candy,’ or ‘man with black mustache leaves house.’ The sheet recommends measures by Irving Berlin and ‘On the Mill Dam,’ a banjo tune that evokes galloping hooves. …

“Performances are similarly variable today, depending on the accompanist and instrument of choice. ‘I try to be as authentic as possible,’ Anderson says. But there’s a lot of debate about what that should sound like.

“If a score or cue sheet for a given film survive, Anderson tries to track them down. Some never existed, others have been lost to time and neglect, and still more, he has found, just aren’t very compelling. [Anderson says,] ‘Whatever’s there, I try to use.’ ”

Atlas Obscura, here, goes into a lot of additional detail, if you are intrigued. You can also see an impressive pipe organ which, along with a 110-piece orchestra, used to accompany movies at the Roxy Theatre. Wouldn’t you love to go to one of these contemporary reenactments?