Author: Ben Model
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Ernie Kovacs Meets Florence Foster Jenkins
It’s a sustained three-minute shot of three people, just sitting, listening to a singer, for a nearly three minutes before the joke has a payoff. That’s how Ernie Kovacs opened one of his prime time shows for NBC in the summer of 1956. Who else had the chutzpah to start a comedy show like that?…
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A Stetson Hat Boomerangs Back
I hadn’t any more use for my 16mm print of Making a Stetson, so I sold it on eBay. I’d won it there in the first place. It seemed to be a lost film, but then a 35mm print turned up in New Zealand and I wanted to know when my print had been made,…
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A Racing Locomotive, a Town on Fire and Colleen Moore
The Ninety and Nine was one of a handful of stage properties that were very popular and which toured a lot in the early 1900s. Like a few other of its type — such as Ben Hur, East Lynne and a certain play by Thomas Dixon — it had a major chase and spectacle mounted…
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Playing the Music On Screen When It’s Not a Match
There’s a pleasant little moment in Sunrise (1927), after the couple has rescued a runaway pig from an arcade game. The dance band strikes up a peasant tune and asks the couple to dance. There’s even a close-up of the music, to let us know that the big city band is playing a peasant tune.…
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A Slightly Faster Sunrise
Kevin Brownlow mailed me an item from “Variety” when I was beginning my research on silent film projection and filming speeds. What struck me is that it was yet another clue that silent era filmmakers had an expectation of what speed their films would be shown at when they were making their picture. The way…
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The Sounds of the Silents — Theatre Organ on DVD
One of the reasons a majority of people associate the piano with silent film, as opposed to theatre organ or orchestra, is that it had been the type of accompaniment utilized the most on a majority of home video editions of silent films. I’d like to address a question that came in from my recent series…
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Eugene: The Movie!
Ernie Kovacs played one version of “Captain Buzzkill” or another in most of the movies he made for Columbia. He was being cast for what he looked like, his “type”. Kovacs made two attempts to upend this: one we know about and one that may be more conjecture on my part, but I think the…
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Is Accompanist a Five-Syllable Word?
On paper, when you look at it, the word “accompanist” is easy to read. And yet, half the time or maybe more, when I am introduced at a show, the word comes out with an extra syllable. It probably happens more with silent film accompaniment than with most other piano accompaniment. I accompany silent films,…
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The Sounds of the Silents — Theatre Organ Accompaniment in NYC, part 3
When I meet people from other parts of the country and tell them I’m a silent film accompanist , they are often surprised when I tell them there are (currently) no theater organs in Manhattan. There are instruments around the west coast, several areas in the Midwest and the southeast US that get used for…
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The Spirit of ’76 Circa 1905
I usually avoid recognizable music if I can help it, as it’s a distraction to the viewer unless there’s someone playing a record or piece of sheet music shown in a close-up. With this particular 1905 film, I needed to make an exception. Here’s a film (below) from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company called…