Episode 74 Show Notes: National Silent Movie Day and Halloween 2026
Ben and Kerr discuss Ben’s new scores for “My Lady’s Lips” (1925) starring William Powell and “Paris Green” (1920) starring Charles Ray, commissioned by the National Film Preservation Foundation to celebrate National Silent Movie Day and Ben talks about following Chaplin’s model for scoring comedy scenes with intermittent action in the “muffin sequence” in “A Dog’s Life” (1918).
Ben and Kerr chat about National Silent Movie Day (September 29) and about how busy silent film accompanists are in the autumn, especially around Halloween.
The Undercrank restoration of The Bat (1926) is circulating well on its own, for Halloween and otherwise.
Two films Ben recently scored for posting online by the National Film Preservation Foundation:
My Lady’s Lips (1925), a crime melodrama, starring William Powell, with Ford Sterling and Clara Bow in support. Here’s an excerpt from the score recorded for the NFPF to celebrate National Silent Movie Day.
Kerr reminds the listener that the Silent Film Music Podcast Index is still up and awaiting user comment to help refine and improve the search process.
Ben discusses how the Index is useful for finding out when he’s discussed a topic on the podcast. For example, in connection with a class taught by Prof. Jennifer Fleeger of Montclair State University, who was viewing A Trip to the Moon (1902). Ben was able to use the podcast index to rapidly locate his comments on playing and narrating the film in Tromso, with the then-newly-discovered script. An online version of the film as restored by Lobster Films with the original narration script can be rented or purchased from Flicker Alley here.
Kerr compares it to Ben accompanying an improvised silent movie scenario by Gilbert Gottfried on his Amazing Colossal Podcast, which Ben told the story of in Episode 47.
Kerr also cites using the Index to discover how the podcast explored the ideas that formed the basis of Ben’s book The Silent Film Universe.
Ben discusses using Chaplin’s own technique of scoring a sequence in City Lights (1931), as he observed when playing in an orchestra under the baton of Timothy Brock, as a model for a similar stop-and-go sequence of The Little Tramp stealing muffins from the counter of Syd Chaplin’s lunch wagon in A Dog’s Life (1918). This showing was to show the work on that film and Shoulder Arms (1918) as part of a restoration under the aegis of the Museum of Modern Art, returning to the original edit of these often-re-edited films. (Here is the muffin scene with Chaplin’s music, not the new restoration and not Ben’s score.)
Ben noted that the popularity of silent films have caused MoMA to book screenings in Titus 1 at the outset, rather than waiting for Titus 2 to sell out.
Ben observes the seamless teamwork of brothers who share comedy training, such as being in the same company or same act over years. Kerr analogizes the muffin scene to the Marx Brothers using the traditional mirror routine in Duck Soup (1933).
Ben explains using music to clarify the action or the intent behind the action for the audience. Ben talks about bringing the audience’s attention to an intruder in The Lonely Villa (1909). Ben tells of using a key modulation to clarify how a dissolve works to represent a character’s thoughts in a melodrama. Similarly, Ben used the score, by inserting a full resolution to make it clear that two adjacent shots were not meant to be in direct chronology. That is fairly common in silent films made in the Teens, when film grammar was still evolving.
Ben also scored Paris Green (1920), a rural melodrama with a bit of suspense, starring Charles Ray for the National Film Preservation Foundation, also marking National Silent Movie Day. We hear an excerpt of a recording from CapitolFest, played on the Moller theater pipe organ installed in the Capitol Theater in 1928, of a restoration by the George Eastman Museum.
Ben reviews his busy Autumn schedule – Halloween is prime Silent Film season!
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