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MMD > Archives > May 2008 > 2008.05.11 > 02Prev  Next


Pianola in TV Movie "An Englishman Abroad"
By Karl Petersen

I have attached an audio file of a very bad recording of part of a
piano roll.  It is from the 1983 BBC TV movie, "An Englishman Abroad",
with Alan Bates and Coral Browne.

On the copy of the film I have, the piano plays at 39 minutes into
the movie, starts abruptly and goes on for maybe another two bars.
The piano roll has a wavy line up in the treble side and some spots
down in the bass, but apparently no words.  The piano key cover says
Schiedmayer & Söhne, Stuttgart, and the roll is being pumped by Alan
Bates who is playing British spy Guy Burgess.

I certainly do not know the tune, and it's probably very unimportant and
not germane to anything in the film, but I would enjoy the satisfaction
of discovering the name of it.  Scotland doubled as Russia for the
location, and it would be curious to see if anyone knows whose piano
it is!

Details at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085492/ are rather sketchy
since they did not credit any music.  Emma Thompson was not credited by
imdb as even being in the film, and it was about her third film and her
first speaking Shakespeare.

Karl Petersen
Washington, Illinois

 [ I'll place the sound sample at the MMDigest Sounds site,
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Sounds/index.html  -- Robbie


(Message sent Mon 12 May 2008, 01:35:36 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.)

Key Words in Subject:  Abroad, An, Englishman, Movie, Pianola, TV

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