Just a quick insert about a few movies that I have noticed that
contained mechanical musical instruments.
In the movie Perils of Pauline, with Betty Hutton, in the first few
minutes of the movie, a barrel piano on the street plays a tune while
Pearl White, played by Betty Hutton, shirks her sewing in the sweat
shop above and dances.
In the recent movie with Gregory Peck, called, I think Old Gringo,
there was an Aeolian Grand Player Organ that was played for a dance
scene, but unfortunately played player piano music!
In the movie Beat the Devil, with Humphrey Bogart, on the old decrepit
Italian ship, there is a scene that involves an upright Duo-Art. It is
at first foot-pumped, then completely electric.
Another Bogey movie, Dead End, about the Bowery Boys, has a nickelodeon
in a speakeasy.
In an old movie with Eddie Albert in a ghost town, there was in an old
saloon a huge orchestrion with a lyre on the facade ... I think a
Losche ... can't remember anything else!
I love to see these machines in old movies. Wouldn't you all love to
look through the prop departments in Hollywood?
Berley Antoine Firmin II
Bayou La Combe, Louisiana
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