Bringing silent film to life

I played a role in a movie three weeks ago, without even so much as a screen test.

Well, technically speaking, I suppose, I didn’t actually debut on the big screen. It was more of an off-screen performance.

It began this past summer when a group of residents of Green Hills Senior Living complex in Ames came to Jefferson for a tour. I was asked to play the Mahanay Tower Carillon for them, which I did, including the Iowa State Fight Song and The Bells of Iowa State. We had an enjoyable conversation at the tower afterward.

I had pretty much forgotten the occasion until several weeks later, when I received a call from the activities director of Green Hills, asking if I would play their grand piano for a showing of the original 1925 movie version of “The Phantom of the Opera” for their Halloween event.

That version, like the well-known 1988 Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is based on the 1910 novel of the same name by French writer Gaston Leroux. Back in 1925 movies were not yet “talkies,” as the term was known. They were silent films, with action scenes often interspersed with typed renditions of conversations or written descriptions of the plot or the characters, sort of like the closed captioning on your TV set.

In order to heighten the audience’s enjoyment, and to avoid the boredom that can accompany sitting in a large, dark, and silent theater for a relatively long period of time, movie houses would hire musicians—a pianist or organist or even an orchestra—to sit in a corner of the theater and perform music appropriate to the various scenes presented to the crowd.

Light-hearted musical selections would accompany a comedy. Dreamy music would be played for a romantic movie. And darker, ominous selections would be heard at melodramas or scary films. Musicians could use whatever tunes seemed appropriate, including well-known classical compositions, pop songs current at the time, or their own original melodies and chords.

Many years ago I had played piano for a live melodrama performance presented at the Elks Lodge here by the local Community Players theater group. It included the standard melodrama characters: hero, villain, and innocent damsel in distress. It was a hoot, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing music appropriate to each of the scenes and characters.

So when Green Hills requested that I do something similar for the silent “Phantom” showing in the complex’s spacious community room, complete with a sumptuous buffet dinner, I said yes immediately.

I had never seen the silent movie version of the story. So the activities director emailed it to me, and I dived into selecting music that followed the action of the plot and fit the multitude of scenes. The movie is about 1 1/2 hours in length, and I agreed to play for the first half of it, before the intermission when the buffet was served. That meant I needed about 45 minutes worth of piano music.

For a few days before the showing, I watched the film on my computer, thought up melodies that would work for each scene, and practiced each of them. I wrote out a shorthand of the various scenes down the left side of a sheet and the particular musical piece for each of them down the right side. I picked out tunes with which I was familiar, so I didn’t need sheet music for any of them.

For transitions between scenes I free-wheeled it, playing chords and melody lines in keeping with the plot.

The plot of the “Phantom” is sort of complex. I won’t try to lay it all out here. But a few examples will give you the idea. I chose songs that were both appropriate to the scenes and somewhat laughable, in contrast to the deep seriousness of the story.

The story is set in the Paris Opera House. An early scene is a ballet performed by a large troupe of female dancers, for which I selected “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” For a scene where the phantom character puts the heroine on a horse and leads her down several levels to the old cellars of the opera house, “Happy Trails” was the choice. And when the phantom transferred her into a boat on an underground lake, I played “Up the Lazy River.” When the boat finally approached the phantom’s lonely apartment down there, it was “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”

You get the idea. The audience applauded at the right times, and a good time was had by all, including me. 

Later, thinking about the experience, I decided that the musicians who played for silent movies a century ago had a wonderful time. I know I would have, and would have been willing to do it without compensation. The challenge was payment enough.