Ken.

Firstly, as a new member of Britmovie Film Forum, hello to everyone.

Before I registered I browsed the site and noted a question asked in August of last year re. the first vocal
soundtrack album? The consensus was either Tommy Steele or Cliff Richard.

In fact there were several vocal soundtrack albums issued before the Rock era, eg. 'Oh!...Rosalinda [1955], and the first of these was the full opera from Powell & Pressberger's 'The Tales Of Hoffmann' [1951]. The opera was transferred from the film soundtrack [26/2/50] and issued on 15 twelve inch records [5/51], Decca AX497-511, and then on long playing records Decca LXT3582/3584.

Prior to this HMV issued parts of the soundtrack from 'Hamlet' [1948] on C3755/56/57 [12 inch], but these consisted of dialogue and incidental music.

Mention should also be made of selections from 'Splinters' [1929] by Carroll Gibbons & His Orchestra who
featured in the film, issued on HMV B3299 [10 inch], and prelude to 'The Loves Of Robert Burns' with songs by Joseph Hislop, who played the title role. The songs were 'Loch Lomond'; 'Ye Banks And Braes'; 'Annie Laurie'; 'Afton Water'; 'Bonnie Mary Of Argyle'. Issued on HMV B3264/65 [16/12/29] [10 inch]. I don't know that these were sountrack transcriptions.

And finally, an honourable mention.

In 1900 Walter Gibbons produced his 'Phono-Bio-Tableaux' films, the first British sound films. These were a series of 3 minute films featuring popular artistes including Vesta Tilley, G.H. Chirgwin, Lil Hawthorne, and
Alec Hurley singing popular songs of the day.

The films were synchronised to phonograph cylinders where they were shown, the first example of
"Soundtrack Songs".

I hope that this may be of some interest to the forum.

Ken.

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

Steve Crook

Hello Ken,
Welcome to the forum.

I have the sountrack albums from Oh... Rosalinda!! & The Tales of Hoffmann. I didn't realise that they were possible contenders for the title of first soundtrack album.

There were also quite a few recordings of the ballet music from The Red Shoes. The one made in 1949 on the 12" LP (Columbia ML-2083) has the music from the ballet on one side and Constant Lambert's Horoscope on the other side. There is also a 1948 LP by the LSO (cond. Muir Mathieson) (Columbia MX328, DX 1957-B ) but that omits the Ondes Martinot.

As I run the Powell and Pressburger Appreciation Society (PaPAS) I have a special interest in those titles

I have a list of all the known recordings from their films on vinyl, tape, CD etc. at PnP FAQ - Section 2.8. Music from the films

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

julian_craster

An 'album' (consisting of 6 x 78rpm Decca records in a box) was issued in 1946
for the British musical LONDON TOWN (Songs by Johnny Burke and
James Van Heusen). Performers include Sid Field, Tessie O'Shea, Beryl Davis and 'Scotty' McHarg. This is a very rare album !

This is probably one of the first British film 'albums' [rather than the issue of a single 78rpm record], but there may have been an album for the 1938 film of THE MIKADO.....I don't know !

Ken.

Julian, thank you for your reply. Unfortunately the 'London Town' Decca recordings weren't a] soundtrack
recordings, nor b] did they feature Tessie O'shea who was contracted to Columbia records at the time, and for whom she recorded 'The 'Ampstead Way', and 'Let It Be Soon' DB2232 [25/7/46]. The Decca records were billed as 'Excerpts from the film by the original artists'. Decca F. 8672/73/74/75/76. [Issued 10/46]. The accompanyment was by [Toots] Camarata and 'The London Town Orchestra', who may have featured in the film, 'though not listed in the BFC.

The only songs on record from 'The Mikado' [1939] are by Kenny Baker, who played 'Nanky Poo', these are
'A Wandering Minstrel I', and 'The Moon And I' HMV BD741 [rec. 28/4/39], not soundtrack recordings. This does not, of course, include the many recordings made by the D'Oly Carte Opera company who's principles also featured in the film, not that anything was released specifically as being from the film.

And one mustn't forget the numerous 12 inch recordings, in the thirties, by artistes such as Geraldo,
Debroy Somers et al. playing excerpts from the films they appeared in. Nor the 'Things To Come' album
[1936] which included at least 2 pieces of soundtrack music.

If, however, it is simply a question of the very first 'Songs From The Film' recording, then it has to be the already mentioned Carroll Gibbons and 'Splinters' [1929].

Ken.




Ken.

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

penfold

Indeed Ken, I never thought to see the name of Chirgwin, "The White-Eyed Kaffir" as he was billed, in these pages....
By the time Gibbons' Phono-Bio-Tableaux (Of the Hippodrome, London) reach Bristol on 27 th May 1901 (2 week stint at the Victoria Rooms with the Royal Animated Picture Co.) he had added Miss Vesta Victoria and The American Comedy Four to the repertoire.
'This marvellous invention faithfully reproduces voice and living pictures......this unique entertainment is quite distinct from ordinary animated photographs.' It says in the advert...
Being as it was at the Vic. Rooms it's a bit pricey, and George Robey's on at The Empire; but they have got film of the Cup Final (Some bunch of lower-league amateurs called Tottenham Hotspur I believe) and if you wait 'til June 6th they'll have The Derby.......
Mind you, the theory went back still further than the practice; some of Edison's mid-1890's Kinetoscope parlours had versions whereby you could listen to a phonograph through earphones and watch a film on his peep-show style Kinetoscope simultaneously; but.......
Wordworth Donisthorpe, my particular hero, suggested in a letter to 'Nature' responding to the announcement of the original phongraph;

"By combining the phonograph with the [my] Kinesigraph I will undertake not only to produce a talking picture of Mr Gladstone....recite his latest anti-Turkish speech in his own voice and tone. Not only this, but the life-size photograph itself shall move and gesticulate precisely as he did when making the speech, the words and gestures corresponding as in real life.....by this means a drama acted by daylight or magnesium light may be recorded and re-enacted on the screen or sheet of a magic lantern, and with the assistance of the phonograph the dialogues may be repeated in the very voices of the actors. When this is actually accomplished the photography of colours will alone be wanting to render the representation absolutely complete, and for this we shall not, I trust, have long to wait"

...It's not generally known that talking, colour feature films (and political propaganda shorts) were being proposed in Liverpool in January 1878......
And not entirely fanciful either.....ten frames of a short reel filmed by Donisthorpe from the balcony of the Liberal Club, Trafalgar Square, in 1890, survive.....well ahead of Edison (and WK Dickson)

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Ken.

Penfold, A kindered spirit [I hope]...You mention The American Comedy Four. I did some research on the films and came up with the following...No.8 in the film series is listed in the BFC as 'Cornfields Quartette'
and nothing else, so I asked my self is that a song title, a vocal group, or a combination of both? The research led me to the third conclusion in that it is a combination. Ernie Bayley's 'Edison Bell Cylinders' lists
EB 5517 as 'Cornfields' by the American Quartette. No.6 in the Phono-Bio-Tableaux is 'Sally In Our Alley'
by the American Comedy Four. EB 5516 is 'Sally In Our Alley' by the American Quartette...Are you still
with me?...Thus my conclusion is that the American Comedy Four and The American Quartette are one in the same. However, both songs were issued as a] 'Cornfields Medley' [Pathe 8966], and 'Sally In Our
Alley' [Pathe 8964] both by the The American Quartette...Some more research gave me the identities of the group, which is somewhere among my extremely disorderly papers, but if you would like it then I will dig it out for you?

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

penfold

Well, if you dig up the films, or the recording that went with it, I can let my friends at the BFI know....always on the look-out for this sort of esoterica...and the Phono-Bio-Tableaux is well enough known, if none (as far as I know) of the films survive...

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Ken.

Steve, thank you so much for your kind welcome. From my meagre profile you will see that my favourite British film is P & P's 'I Know Where I'm Going' which featured she, who to my mind is the greatest ever
Britsh screen [and stage] actress, the sublime Wendy Hiller. My other extra favourite actress, 'though from the USA, did make both films and TV here in the UK, I mean of course Bebe Daniels, who, again in my own opinion acted Miss Keeler off the screen in '42nd Street', and, along with her husband, Ben Lyon, remained in the UK during the blitz when it would have so easy to take the first boat home...A great talent somewhat underrated by those I call the 'Afficianados'.

One more thing Steve, in your music collction do you have a 'singles' recording of 'I know Where I'm Going' by The Glasgow Orpheus Choir?...Both of which featured in the film...I have a large amount of recording information from about 1897 to 1980ish, but I have yet to find a 'singles' record of the above.

Ken.

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

Steve Crook

I haven't. There was some sheet music issued to go with the film but I've never heard of a recording.
It was of course really an Irish folk song and has been recorded by many other people before & since.

The Glasgow Orpheus disbanded and re-formed many years later as the Glasgow Phoenix Choir. Some of their older members were juniors in the Orpheus but nobody there seems to remember doing the work for IKWIG.

My other task to do with that film is to find out what they're actually singing in that counterpoint at the Ceildhe.
"Macafee?" something "in the corn"? It's lovely to listen too, as is the solo. But I'd love to know what they are. Even the Gaelic speakers I've met in Mull (& Glasgow) don't know.

See details of various trips to Mull, especially the one last October to celebrate the 60th anniversary.

Steve

Ken.

Steve, have just spent a good hour browsing numerous record catalogues looking for the Choir, MD Walter Goher, and your song, so far without any luck, but 'Million Dollar Movie' has given up a couple of possible leads Allan Gray [Music] and the Ceildhe singers [with their names], so, and as we say in these parts, I wil give it a good coat of looking at tomorrow.

Ken.

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

Steve Crook

Please do. I asked the Glasgow Phoenix Choir but nobody there seemed to know, or maybe they were giving me the brush off.

Maybe I should try the Shazam music tag system

Steve

penfold

But have you seen her as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz....a stunning version from Fort Lee, 1910 !! Well worth seeking out... 1910 Wizard of Oz - Amazon.com

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Ken.

Steve. No luck as of yet, but I am now starting on 'Songs And Music In British Films, 1930-1939', so the song
just might turn up in that era. [I have already completed 'Songs And Music In British Films 1897-1929].

Ken.

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

Ken.

Penfold. No I haven't seen the 1910 film, to be honest I have severe problems in viewing moving images...Not blindness or the like, in fact my eyesight is okay, except when it comes to watching films...No, I don't know why either, 'though I am booked in to see my doctor next week.

Anyway, you obviously have a particular interest in early cinema, and, with this in mind, and if you haven't already got it, would you like to borrow F.A. TALBOTS' 'MOVING PICTURES HOW THEY ARE MADE AND WORKED' [1912] ? If so, then please let me know.

One more thing. You no doubt know about 'GAUMONT CHRONOPHONE FILMS', numerous short musical films
made between 1906 & 1908, which were synchronised to gramophone records. I do have some information about these films, gleaned from the BFC, etc, but I am trying to follow the trail of the actual recordings used in that were they 'Ordinary' records, or specially created for the films? And if so, by whom?

I have one possible 'lead'...Many of the artistes in the films recorded for 'Sterling' cylinders, and many of these recordings were transposed to Pathe single sided discs, but there it rests at the moment.

Ken.

"Pic-nicking Mr Pernel?..Pic-nicking Miss Dandridge?

penfold

Sorry to hear of your problem....I must admit I take my eyesight for granted, it would be a nightmare to have it impaired...good luck with the doctor...
The book I hadn't heard of...I may seek it out; but I am the worst borrower in the world, so keep your copy safe !!
I had heard of Chronophone but know little about them; the one guy I know who will certainly know something about the subject I don't have a contact number for, do you know Tony Fletcher? Lovely guy, great friend too, but we only ever see each other at film do's..I'll ask him next time I see him.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??