From time to time here we have seen posts where someone sees a player
piano in a motion picture.  In most cases, the scene is short, the
player piano is faked, and the music is dubbed.

However, I saw a film the other day which featured a player piano
actually being played properly, and, lo and behold, it sounded like a
player piano!  The film is called "Maurice" (but pronounced "Morris"),
and, for the life of me, I can't remember who stars in it.  I do know
it was a very lush Merchant Ivory film, with their usual careful
attention to detail.

The particular scene takes place on the way to and in a dorm room at
Cambride, where a friend of one of the protagonists has a pianola
installed.  A classical roll is played with much gusto (and yes, using
treadles and keyslip controls), with the several young men in the room
singing along.

Sadly, the piano was far from being in tune, and had the somewhat thin
(to my ears, at least) sound typical of English upright pianos.  The
whole movie was lushly beautiful from beginning to end, being set in
upper-class Edwardian England and obviously having a massive budget

However, one word of caution, lest you venture out to the nearest
video rental place to see this film.  The subject matter of "Maurice"
may be offensive to some sensibilities, as it deals with that which
one of Oscar Wilde's contemporaries delicately called "the love which
dares not speak its name".

Nonetheless, "Maurice" is a real showpiece of a film, and one of the
few I have seen that shows player pianos sympathetically and in their
proper context.  To most, I would heartily recommend it.

Bryan "Catt" Cather