Ref. Player Pianos in the Old West Myth

It's nice to have some confirmation surface to support the notion that,
at least the authentic sound of player pianos, has indeed been heard in
western movies.  I am coming to the conclusion that I am perhaps more
privileged by coincidence than other MMD film buffs.

I have memories of brief spool-box shots in two western movies.  The
first one was a cowboy movie I saw in the Crest Theater, on Lombard
in Portland, Oregon, in the early 'fifties.  I was very young; it was
probably a couple years before I first saw a television set, in the
days when you and all your friends routinely went to the movies once
a week.

In the film, there was a wedding which took place at the saloon.
The guys in the ceremony greased their hair, parted it in the middle
in "Dagwood" style and wore fancy duds.  One of them thought this gave
him license to grab the girls and kiss them, but they didn't think so.
In the process of showing the celebration there was a pan-by of the
piano.  It was in color and the shiny brass of the tracker bar stood
out.  If I'd 'a' known someone would want to know the name of the film
fifty years later I mighta made notes, but no -- sorry!

The other one was something I recorded off satellite TV probably
15 years ago.  As I recall, it looked like a B picture from the mid
'thirties or so.  While a pan-through of a saloon scene takes place,
we briefly see some scruffy old coot sitting at the piano while a roll
is playing.  He's holding a smoke in his hand, maybe to point out that
he's not playing the keys.  We know he's not the piano player because
he is not attired as an entertainer.

I'm sure if the film had had a plot worth seeing more than once I would
have put it a special place, but no.  So, I don't even know for sure if
I still have the tape.  They're mostly all well on their way to Hades
by now, anyway.

I also have recollection of a silent movie with what appears to be an
authentic shot of a real saloon piano player in action, and this is
actually the one I'd be most pleased to have surface so I could see it
again.  In the early days of silent movies some film companies did very
little studio work.  They packed their cameras and actors up and cruised
to locations where the kind of activity they wished to film was taking
place for real.  If you look at some of these scenes you can see the
moments where folks who just happened by realized they were on camera.

This particular scene was kind of frustrating because it was a shot of
a real pianist, without any sound!  The piano player is clearly attired
as a dandy when compared to the rest of the house.  We see wrist action
which indicates the kind of playing we refer to as "Marimba Effect".
And while the pianist is playing with both hands, he artistically picks
up a very smoky cheroot resting at one end of the keyboard and takes
a puff in a fraction of a second several times a minute.  All the while
he has a look on his face that indicates he is about as enthused as if
he were wrapping rotten fish guts in old newspaper.  This guy wouldn't
make it on Lawrence Welk!

Now, someone has raised the issue of how "old" the "Old West" should be
and suggested no later than 1880.  I think it's more realistic to bring
it up to 1920.  I'm sure there were still plenty of smaller communities
where the horses greatly outnumbered horseless carriages by then.  You
see Model T Fords in cowboy movies that are old enough to be rattletraps,
so they're not brand new and no-one sees anything wrong with that.

I don't think player piano technology is 'too new' to have been present
in the 'Old' west.  And to me, the notion is not credible, that there
were never any player pianos in saloons where you'd see more folks
recognizable as 'cowboys' than not.  If the time comes when I can report
the title of such a movie, you may be sure to hear from me again.

Lee Rothrock