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MMD > Archives > October 2001 > 2001.10.29 > 05Prev  Next


Mechanical Music in Films: "Death Valley"
By Thomas Henden

On a commercial Scandinavian channel (TV3), they just showed the
1982 American thriller, "Death Valley," directed by Dick Richards

I didn't pay much attention to the TV at the time the film ran.
However, when this little boy visited a western 'general store', in a
cowboy museum town, I heard music which is very typical to be heard in
cowboy movies, I paid attention as the little boy walked through that
museum store, and stopped by the piano.

Since he was very alone in this quite large store (adding some of the
weirdness in this movie), I suspected the piano could be a player
piano, and yes it was, however the type is unknown.

As the little boy looks at a poorly made doll that is supposed to be
a human piano player, that is placed in front of the playing piano,
we see some more close shots of the piano, of the moving keys and the
moving roll.

The music was of course pre-recorded and not in sync with the keys, but
it could very well be from a player piano. The roll seemed to have the
modern rice paper look, partly transparent, and it seemed to not just
be some mockup, it had a real tracker bar and the keys were moving
distinctly.

The little boy pointed his toy cowboy gun (What are we teaching kids?!)
at the doll, and threatened him to continue playing, then he went
around on in the store.  The player piano probably was supposed to add
some spookiness in that deserted store, without being the obvious 'a
ghost is playing the piano' type of effect.  So in this technically well
made B-film, the player piano is one of the best effects, although I
didn't pay any attention before I heard the piano...  :-)

Most of the spookiness else, was made with disharmonic violins, dark
scenes and strange camera angles in a very standard way, so that player
piano really added something different...

Although the soundtrack wasn't synchronized with, or didn't belong to
that particular piano, it also was very satisfying to see a real
working player piano in a movie.  More info about the film at
http://movies.eonline.com/Facts/Movies/0,60,4491,00.html

A review of the film ("Very funny... and very senseless") is at
http://www.nmia.com/~pslock/cheeze1.htm

Don't expect to get the great kick or anything out of it, unless you
really like films of the 'Scream' or 'Friday the 13th' type, or you
like to see a real, working player piano in a movie!  :-D

Thomas Henden


(Message sent Mon 29 Oct 2001, 01:22:04 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Death, Films, Mechanical, Music, Valley

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