Moving Picture World (Jan-Jun 1910)

638 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD Moving Pictures and Music. By Paul Evert Denton. With the innovation of the moving picture show in the amusement field, demand for musicians has increased rapidly, until now hundreds of piano players and performers on other instruments are making good wages in the large cities and towns. Some shows can afford an orchestra. It is a peculiar fact that the average spectator doesn't take much note of the music or realize its importance when he goes into a show. Yet he would miss it. What is the moving picture show without music? Did you ever drop into one when, perhaps, the piano player had gone to supper, and there was no sound with the exception of that peculiar to the projecting machine? You know you were conscious of the fact that there seemed to be something lacking. You weren't at your fullest enjoyment. Somehow a moving picture show isn't half so entertaining unless there is a pianist to put you in the proper mood for the picture, so that you can best appreciate it. I Tow much more you enjoy seeing a big ocean liner leaving New York Harbor with its crowd of humanity, to the tune of some light waltz song. It seems entirely in "keeping with the picture. And how sad is that deathbed scene, or where some poor little child is thrown into the street by a cruel, drunken father, and as the snow begins to fall faster and faster, she swoons in the cold mass of feathery flakes — and how much more intensified is that emotion in you when you see the picture as the strains of the "Flower Song" (that composition indispensable to tragedy), or, perchance, "Hearts and Flowers," is wafted in your ears. .Moving pictures and music are inseparable. This the public cannot deny. And yet how little attention and praise the musician at the piano receives. The musician or piano player in a moving picture show must be versatile. He should have accurate knowledge of the tunes of a catalogue of songs that have caught the popular fancy. Coupled with this knowledge he must have the power of application. For instance : How fitting to play "Please Go 'Way and Let Me Sleep,"' when a tramp lays himself down in some quiet nook for a snooze, or perhaps play "Because T Love You." in a scene of domestic tranquillity punctuated by the hurling of cups and saucers, or, again, "Teasing," when the rest of an old grandfather is broken by the pranks of a Buster Brown who tickles the paternal nose. Hundreds of like examples could be noted, which are all up to the quick wit of the player and the conditions of the picture. The audience always enjoys this. How peculiar would be the impression on a spectator to hear some lively quickstep played as a little girl's sick mother passes away and leaves her to the mercy of the "cold, cruel world." The pianist must be able to quickly change his music to put the interested spectator in the mood the picture demands. He must acquire the ability of being able to play to the correct time in which the figures in the picture dance, if there is a Terpischorean film. This is no easy matter, as the figures sometimes change the time quite frequently in a picture. The pianist must watch close, because the effect would be rather marred if a two-step were played while a Colonial minuet was being executed. Much has been written on the various devices for sound and imitation, constructed to lend realism to the pictures. But music is even a more important adjunct in the display of moving pictures than these. Music, while it may escape the attention of the spec tator, has the strange and subtle influence of creating moods, and that is why it is so important in the presentation of the moving picture. The Villain of the Piece. By Thomas Bedding, F.R.P.S. In former article I have told my readers something about my experiences in the way of producing and rehearsing silent and talking plays ; I also had something to say about the dramatic movement in the picture, and the enormous part played by the lady's hat in the moving picture house. Like all authors, I like to hear nice things said about my work, and as these little personal experiences are evidently to the taste of my readers, I propose to continue the series from time to time. There is a lot to be said about the lighter and more human side of the moving picture. I do not think that there is any subject of conversation on which men and women more easily get together than the moving picture. Politics, religion, science, art, all give way, I notice, to the moving picture when it is mentioned. I found myself, the other evening, a guest at a great and exclusive New York club, the members of which are men of eminence and renown, who discussed learned subjects in a learned way. Yet so soon as it was known that I was identified with the moving picture, so soon as the subject itself was mentioned, hardly anything else was talked about thereafter but moving pictures. But this is not about the "villain of the piece." Who is this "villain of the piece?" Ladies and gentlemen, brethren and sistern. it is I, who write this, moi-meme, myself, my very own and undoubted self. I never had the ambition common to many, both men and women, of "going on the stage."' Many boys have, as we all know. They either want to go on the stage, go to sea or drive a locomotive. I never had any of these things. I always wanted to be what I am — a knight of the pen. But I have had a sneaking, half formed desire to go on the stage very occasionally, and in one capacity only — that of the villain of the piece. I have no use for the hero, the old man, the adventurous soldier. I do not very much care for actresses, unless they are nice women, but I do love a right down, straightforwared, unmitigated villain on the stage. You know the kind of villain I mean. Lago ; Richard the Second ; Mephistopheles. Good old Mephisto ! There's a villain for you; the, very devil himself. I shall never forget the villainously villainous way in" which Irving as Mephistopheles. in "Faust," turned, towards the close of the play, to Martha, the maladroit old woman of the piece, and said in that unspeakably sardonic voice of his : "/ don't know what will become of you. / won't have you." Fancy the devil rejecting anybody ! How very villainous, and how I would like, were I an actor, to play such a part. Such an opportunity of letting yourself go ! I would not like talking platitudes, religion, sentiment, and the very usual things of the usual drama. Well, I realized my secret ambition last week. I wanted to play the part of a villain, and to play the part of a villain in a moving picture play. I have no doubt that those of you who know me personally will sav that I was not half a bad villain. Six feet and half an inch, 205 pounds and one of those saturnine expressions of countenance which may mean that the possessor of those attributes is either a detective or bank robber. A very obvious villain, eh? The little drama of which I speak was rapidly arranged by Stage Director Golden, of -the Powers Company. We were having tests made of a film, when with truly remarkably and rapid inspiration Golden wrote, cast and ar