The “cue sheet” was the most common type of film score during the silent era. These were road maps for the conductors and musicians in movie houses. They were rarely if ever made in collaboration with a film’s director, and there was no requirement that they be adhered to. Most of the cue sheets I’ve seen are for feature length films. However, some comedy shorts had their own published cue sheets.
Press books for new releases were sent out to theaters mainly to help local theater managers know how to promote or advertise a given film. There are stills included, pre-written articles, ad artwork in all press books. I recently came in to a short pile of 7 press books for some 2-reel Mack Sennett comedies released by Pathé in 1926, and these also include musical cue sheets for these shorts. I’d heard of this before, as my friend Steve Massa let me know that there is a collection of press books at the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts for a slew of these Pathécomedy releases that also have cue sheets inside, for both Sennett and Hal Roach shorts.
I’ve sent scans of the cue sheets that I have to my friend Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard, who established and maintains the Silent Film Sound and Music Archive. “SFSMA” is an online repository of vintage silent film music and film scoring books that are downloadable in PDF format. Kendra has just added the cue sheets I sent to SFSMA website.
You can view each of them via the links below:
- The Gosh Darn Mortgage – Charles Farrell, Peggy O’Neill
- Hayfoot Strawfoot – Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde
- Hot Cakes For Two – Alice Day
- Scared Stiff – Clyde Cook
- Spanking Breezes – Alice Day
- Trimmed in Gold – Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde
- Ukelele Shieks – Glen Tryon
My fellow silent film accompanist Philip C. Carli had found these press books in a large stack of sheet music he’d acquired, and sent these on to me. I’ve re-homed them to the collection of fellow silent film historian and home-video producer Dave Glass, who Kickstarted and produced a Blu-ray of restored Billy Bevan films in 2023.