The Sound of Silents:
Using Music to Enhance the Movies

Whereas the use of music at the picture show was sporadic and inconsistent during film’s earliest years, sound gradually became a regular element of moviegoing with the arrival of nickelodeons in the Northwest. Many of these small picture venues chose to enhance their bills with one or more illustrated singers, who typically performed between film selections. This feature did a couple of things. First, it diversified the bill, attracting patrons who may have been more interested in the songs than they were the pictures. Some singers, in fact, became popular attractions in their own right and received prominent billing in the house’s advertising. The rise of the illustrated singer also boosted the nickelodeon’s image, to a degree, since it offered the public a more refined style of entertainment – something that eventually led to the demise of circus-style ballyhoo.^[1] “In 1907 a busy theatre front with active ballyhoo was the goal,” Rick Altman observed, but “by 1912 such an arrangement would have been labeled ‘abominable.’”^[2]

Illustrated singers typically performed solo or accompanied by a set of glass slides that were projected onscreen featuring the song lyrics or a series of pictures that visualized the selection. They were popular between 1905 and 1913, and became a regular movie feature, in part, thanks to the music publishing industry. For these businesses, featured singers in vaudeville and motion picture houses were a great vehicle for showcasing their song catalogues, helping boost sales of sheet music. Just like theatres signed contracts for film service, they could also sign for an illustrated song service that supplied the house with a specified number of selections and slides per week.^[3] A package might encompass 12-16 glass slides per song, give or take, which could be thrown onscreen with fades and dissolves to enhance the dramatic elements of the presentation. Drawing on a 1906 account in Washington Magazine, Eugene Clinton Elliott described the song “When I Left You ‘Neath the Willows,” a sentimental ballad visualized with a series of projected slides.

It opens with a very pretty picture in which he is apparently leaving her, his straw hat lifted from the bright curls that cluster round his fair young head, her eyes cast modestly down. Then he goes away and fights ‘neath the Stars and Stripes forever, is pierced ‘neath the blue coat by a cruel bullet from an unseen foe, falls ‘neath the tropical sun, [when] she miraculously comes upon the battlefield, covers his aching head ‘neath her tresses, and as the life-blood ebbed away, he unto her did say, “When I Left You ‘Neath the Willows.” Somehow its always “‘neath” in the illustrated song.^[4]

Given the cost, securing a song slide service was less likely in small-town Washington. But there were ways around this. When George Reizner got into the exhibition business in 1907, he opened a small show in Raymond where he had little choice but to perform every role himself. “[Reizner] began twelve years ago when trick photography and illustrated songs furnished the only choice in films,” Moving Picture World later recalled. “Mr. Reizner sang the songs, and as the two-reelers took very little time to run off, there were six shows a night, and his voice sometimes grew hoarse.”^[5] Not every exhibitor had a voice like Reizner’s, of course, but most places had folks with musical talent (often young women) who were willing to make extra money by performing at the local picture show. One was Vera Stanley of Ritzville, in Adams County. In 1909 she wrote to Moving Picture World with thoughts on the profession. “[A] singer who has but one song to do a week has no excuse in not having that one ballad committed,” Stanley remarked, and he or she “should be able to sing it perfectly with flood light effect[s] as well as with [illustrated] slides.” The problem was that many small-town operators in her area refused to pay the going rate – Stanley cited $12 per week – unless the singer was performing multiple selections. “I have found that the managers who expect singers to do one song a week pay more and appreciate the work more than those who call for six songs and then wonder why the songs are not committed.”^[6] Performers like Vera Stanley were a valuable commodity in rural communities. “…[T]here are in every town and city many young people who sing well and who are not averse to earning money in refined film theatres,” Moving Picture World advised in 1911. “In fact, many who have marked talent are paying for a musical education in this way.”^[7]

In Seattle, the illustrated singer became an integral part of movie exhibition. There, in fact, the singer became a distinguishing characteristic of many houses, if only because they were one of the few recurring elements from week to week. A good nickelodeon changed films frequently, but the singer was one of the few constants, and there were some in the audience who gravitated toward houses showcasing their favorite vocal talent. Some singers were so well liked by the public that they were occasionally poached by rival houses.^[8]

A good demonstration of how important the illustrated singer became in Seattle can be seen in the motion picture bills advertised for the July 4^th holiday in 1911. The Coliseum at Third and James, for example, which billed itself as the “World’s Greatest Photoplay Theatre,” led their advertising with the fact that “Seattle’s Favorite Singers” (with solos, duets and trios) performed between every picture and stage offering. Then there was the Alhambra, the newest addition to the Seattle picture field (“Best Foto-Drama, Best Singing, Best Orchestra”), which also featured a combination of pictures, songs and standalone music. The Grand Opera House was showcasing the singing and dancing of the Bell sisters, while the Circuit Theatre (“Seattle’s Original Photo-Play Theatre”), also managed by Eugene Levy, featured Sydney Ferney as the house soloist and Reginald Watts as organist. The Dream, on the other hand (“Seattle’s Best Photoplay House”), trumped everyone in the music department by having not one but two sopranos, Marie Cleveland and Ruth Salisbury, plus a new soloist, Wallace Brownlow, who had been brought up from San Francisco.^[9] And the Dream’s ace in the hole was always organist Oliver Wallace, who helped interpret films that included a truncated version of The Taming of the Shrew, Lubin’s Rescued in Time and Vitagraph’s Tested by the Flag. The city’s other nickelodeons, including the Lyceum, City, Ideal, Exhibit, Odeon, National, Bijou and Washington theatres, also organized special July 4^th programs and each one of these houses likely had their own singing or musical features as well.^[10]

Over time, however, as films grew in length and became the centerpiece of the exhibitor’s show, the role of the illustrated singer was diminished – by World War I they were rarely seen. But there were other factors at work. By then many theatres were offering regular musical accompaniment (by orchestra, organist or other means), and venues large and small were installing second projectors that shortened or eliminated the wait times between reels. With these showmanship changes, there was less need for the services of an illustrated singer. The music industry was also changing. During the teens many households were switching from playing their own music at home, as had been popular for decades, to playing phonographs. This put a dent in the sale of sheet music, with things shifting in favor of disc recordings, and helped condition listeners to “hear” songs performed in a certain way, since records allowed a person to experience the same vocal performance every time.^[11] These were subtle shifts that took place over several years, but they combined to eventually push the illustrated singer out of the picture theatre.

Still, the concept was occasionally revived. Consider the costumed soprano that took to the stage of Seattle’s Coliseum Theatre in 1917 to perform a song from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. She was delightful, with a rapturous voice, sending the audience into wild applause, who then got a complete shock when the young woman suddenly grabbed her hair and yanked it off, revealing that she was actually a he. “This is an old vaudeville trick,” acknowledged Motion Picture News, “but it went over nicely.”^[12] Five years later, when manager R.W. Case was developing a promotion strategy for The Storm, staff at Seattle’s Columbia Theatre negotiated a tie-up with a local music publisher. This company not only installed a temporary amplification system but lined up singers to appear nightly at the Columbia and provided them with their latest popular song hits, along with slides that could be projected during each performance. It was a win-win proposition: it provided the Columbia with a musical novelty during their presentation of The Storm, and the publisher saw an uptick in business as audiences purchased recordings and song sheets of the featured tunes.^[13]

If any musical presentation typified the movie experience between the nickelodeon period and World War I, however, it was songs played on a pipe organ. Pianos, of course, were the more common (and more cost-effective) instrument, but a number of large- and medium-sized houses were able to install their own organ units, much as Seattle’s Dream Theatre had done years before. The benefit of an instrument like a Wurlizer or Hope-Jones organ was that it came with hundreds of sound options, depending on its size, but could be played by a single person. Depending on the unit’s functionality, these instruments could be played straight away or could mimic orchestral sounds and even deliver sound effects. They created a “wall of sound” that some viewed as more impactful than music provided by a set of live musicians, particularly when used in smaller houses. Organs weren’t cheap – large units could run $30,000 or more – but the argument was that the instrument paid for itself because it was so versatile and allowed the theatre to employ fewer musicians. With units available in a variety of sizes and price points, they were usually within reach of most picture venues, even in rural locations. There was even a secondary organ market allowing smaller houses to pick up instruments for a fraction of the original price, usually when another motion picture venue or church upgraded theirs. As such, the pipe organ became a ubiquitous symbol of silent era moviegoing, both in the Northwest and around the country, and remained a common feature in many houses right up to the introduction of sound.

Oliver Wallace was Seattle’s pioneer movie organist, widely known for his early work with James Clemmer at the Dream and Clemmer Theatres. Later, in 1914, Wallace began helming the organ at Seattle’s Liberty Theatre, operated by Greater Theatres Company, though Claude Jensen and John von Herberg’s expanding theatre empire meant that their star musician frequently made guest appearances at their other Northwest houses. Wallace briefly stepped out of the Greater Theatres’ orbit in the early 1920s to do a stint in Los Angeles for showman Sid Grauman, but returned to great fanfare in 1923 when the Liberty showed the Douglas Fairbanks film Robin Hood. By then, however, he wasn’t just accompanying films with popular tunes or incidental music. Instead, Wallace was creating entire musical programs specifically to suit the picture at hand. “After previewing the picture to play the following week,” Motion Picture News observed in 1924, “Mr. Wallace composes an appropriate verse and set[s] it to music for use as a musical introduction.”^[14] He even composed popular songs. In 1918, in collaboration with local musician Harold Weeks, Wallace co-wrote “Hindustan,” which was not only a hit at the time but was later recorded by several artists, including Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. Later, in 1924, Wallace had another popular hit with the foxtrot “Roll Along.”^[15]

Oliver Wallace’s time as a theatre organist was enough to make him legendary in the Pacific Northwest, but it was actually a prelude to his second act, after the coming of sound motion pictures, when he went to work at the Disney Studios in southern California. There Wallace created scores for hundreds of shorts and features, including Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Old Yeller (1957). He was a five-time Oscar nominee during his stint with Disney, taking home the statuette in 1942 for his work on the Disney film Dumbo, an honor he shared with Frank Churchill.^[16]

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] Richard Abel, The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press – 1999), Page 111.
[2] Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (New York: Columbia University Press – 2004), Page 130.
[3] Ibid., Pages 188-189.
[4] Eugene Clinton Elliott, A History of Variety and Vaudeville in Seattle: From the Beginning to 1914 (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 1944), Page 51. Here Elliott is quoting from “Vaudeville – A Sketch,” an article that originally appeared in Washington Magazine in September 1906, Pages 31-33.
[5] S.J. Anderson, “Interesting Record of Exhibitor Reizner,” Moving Picture World, 3 November 1917, Page 746.
[6] Vera Stanley, “The Singer and the Song,” Moving Picture World, 12 June 1909, Page 798.
[7] George Rockhill Craw, “Swelling the Box Office Receipts,” Moving Picture World, 13 May 1911, Page 1060.
[8] Richard Abel, Americanizing the Movies and ‘Movie Mad’ Audiences (Berkeley: University of California Press – 2006), Pages 127-128.
[9] Being an illustrated singer had other advantages as well – it’s how Marie Cleveland, one of the Dream’s featured singers, became Mrs. James Clemmer. Cleveland was first hired to perform there in 1909 in what was supposed to be a two-week engagement, but Clemmer fell so hard that he never asked her to leave. That is, until 1929, when the pair divorced. (See “Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 19 August 1911, Page 470; and “Separate Divorces Granted to Clemmers,” Seattle Daily Times, 3 January 1929, Page 7.)
[10] See print ads for the Coliseum, Alhambra, Circuit and Dream Theatres, Seattle Daily Times, 4 July 1911, Page 9; advertisements for the Grand Opera House, Alhambra, Coliseum and Circuit Theatres, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 July 1911, Page 5; and “At the Motion Picture Shows,” Seattle Star, 4 July 1911, Page 7.
[11] Altman, Pages 190-191.
[12] See “Arbuckle in The Butcher Boy at the Coliseum,” Moving Picture World, 12 May 1917, Page 1011; and “Coliseum Lines Them Up at 6AM,” Motion Picture News, 19 May 1917, Page 3123.
[13] Selling The Storm at Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 2 September 1922, Page 1144.
[14] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 29 March 1924, Page 1451.
[15] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 3 January 1925, Page 75.
[16] See “O.G. Wallace, Ex-Seattle Musician, Dies,” Seattle Daily Times, 17 September 1963, Page 47; and “Oliver Wallace Dies at 76; Composer of ‘Hindustan,’” New York Times, 17 September 1963, Page 35. Wallace wasn’t the only big-name Northwest musician to make the jump to Hollywood. Samuel K. Wineland, example, was a longtime orchestra leader in Seattle who eventually went to California and composed screen music for a handful of features, shorts and documentaries, later recording several movie soundtracks, including for Paramount’s Bulldog Drummond series. Mischa Guterson, the featured leader of the Coliseum’s orchestra when the house debuted in 1916, eventually wrote music for a handful of Broadway productions and at least three films – music for 1921’s Hail the Woman, starring Florence Vidor, and a pair of 1924 releases, The Siren of Seville (starring Priscilla Dean) and The Lover of Camille (starring Monte Blue). See “Sam Wineland,” Internet Movie Database (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0934853/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0), accessed 11 April 2021; “Mischa Guterson,” The New York Times, 29 September 1951, Page 14; and “Mischa Guterson,” Internet Movie Database (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3840371/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0), accessed 11 April 2021.

If there’s a single Northwest moment where pictures and music were brought together for good, it was probably in 1908 when the Dream Theatre, operated by James Clemmer, hired Oliver Wallace to play the venue’s pipe organ. Even so, the engagement of Wallace coincided with a growing feeling throughout the industry that pictures should be shown together with music, as argued that same year by W. Stephen Bush of Moving Picture World. Reminding exhibitors not to neglect the musical portion of their show, Bush noted that “[n]o picture was ever made that could not be improved by music and effects…I have been in theatres where the piano player helped the success of the picture almost as much as the operator.”^[1]

The advice was helpful, but there was still no industry standard for how that was to be accomplished. Rick Altman found a 1913 survey of San Francisco exhibitors that detailed a wide variety of musical practices in their theatres. Interestingly, mechanical music was far and away the most prominent method used to accompany films. Dubbed a “photoplayer,” these instruments were essentially player pianos or organs, with some models that could hold more than one roll of music at time, so they didn’t need to be changed as often. This was an interesting practice, in that while these units did indeed provide music, they couldn’t necessarily match the sound to the onscreen action. Their popularity, Altman surmises, may have been that photoplayers didn’t require the services of a union musician, so it was a cost-effective solution for management. Even so, a jaunty tune might be right and appropriate for the beginning of a film, but it kept right on playing if things took a menacing turn onscreen, such as a burglary or the death of a character. Even more surprising in the 1913 survey was the fact that there were still a good number of San Francisco theatres that played no music at all – a throwback to cinema’s earliest days. They may have had songs between films, but when it came to movies themselves, the audience sat in silence, with only the noise of other patrons and the whir of the projector to serenade them through the story.^[2]

For the most part, however, by the mid-teens most Washington state theatres, large and small, offered some type of musical accompaniment with their pictures. In big cities like Seattle or Spokane these could be orchestras of up to 15-20 people, while others installed pipe organs or simply used a piano. Whatever the scenario, it generally fell to the house musician(s) to figure out how to best compliment the onscreen action. Prior to World War I, most films were released without any type of suggested musical score. But here the motion picture trade papers came in handy, with several publishing music columns that gave picture musicians a forum for sharing information, tips and ideas. Moving Picture World’s column, for example, was penned by Clarence E. Sinn, who dubbed himself “The ‘Cue Music Man.” In this case Sinn (a former musical director from Chicago) would write about industry developments, though much of his column came from reader letters asking for advice on specific questions or best practices.

Under that format Sinn answered questions from across the country, including a number from musicians in Washington state. For example, in early 1911 E.A. Dunn, a pianist from Spokane, wrote to Sinn with a very specific question. Citing a western film in which a crime occurs, a posse is assembled and a pursuit follows, Dunn wanted to know the proper way for a musician to handle those varied scenes. Personally, he believed the pianist should select a melodramatic piece of music, to begin with the criminal act, which would carry through until the culprit was apprehended. Dunn felt strongly changing the music midway (for example, switching to a new tune as the posse gallops away to give chase) broke up the action and lessened the impact of the scene(s). (Dunn was likely disappointed with Clarence Sinn’s response, which basically amounted to “well, it depends.”) The more interesting portion of Dunn’s letter, however, was the description of how he worked. “I do not use a scrap of music on the piano when I am at work, as I do not come on till 2 o’clock and the show opens at 10:30, so I have ample time to prepare my program beforehand,” Dunn wrote. (This comment seems to indicate that the venue’s early shows were unaccompanied, and that Dunn – who seems to have worked solo – sat in the auditorium viewing films with the paying audience, devising his musical approach based on whatever he was seeing.) “I have the few sheets of music I am to use set on the piano and after a few times over I have them memorized and lay them aside. I compose as I go along and fake as well, using quite a few popular and sentimental songs. I may be playing a waltz and switch into ‘Cubanola Glide’ in waltz time, or ‘Dixie’ into a schottische or any popular song.” Naturally, Dunn was a fan of his own work and felt that the piano (and possibly a small cabinet organ) was the ideal accompaniment for moving pictures. “The picture house is no place for a pipe organ,” he opined, “one reason being that it cannot be placed alongside the piano. When you are following a picture and a church scene appears you [would] have to stop the piano and walk over to the organ and the minute you stop the piano your picture loses interest. I have worked in houses where the pipe and cabinet organs were used and I prefer the cabinet.”^[3]

E.A. Dunn wasn’t the only Washington musician grappling with various music issues. Shortly after his letter appeared, an unnamed musician from Everett wrote to Clarence Sinn with his own problem: how does a musician reconcile the fact that so many western films were being produced, yet there were only a handful of popular tunes suggesting the western atmosphere? The picture in question was the IMP film Unreasonable Jealousy, and improvising (admittedly not this man’s strong suit) was only getting him so far.^[4] In this case, Sinn instructed the Everett musician to stop viewing his music as a literal interpretation of the screen action. It was okay to use (or re-use) certain pieces throughout the show, since the role of music was to accent the plot – it didn’t have to be letter-perfect. For some pictures, a particular selection played at a particular moment could amplify the screen action, but most scenes didn’t need that kind of treatment. He even suggested that some films had scenes that would be enhanced not through the addition of music, but from its absence, so musicians shouldn’t be afraid to let a sequence play unaccompanied. Most of the time music only played a supporting role, so the musician needn’t obsess over every note. Similarly, when a female musician who only identified herself as “Puget Sound” wrote to Clarence Sinn about the difficulty accompanying films with religious themes, he argued that a religious-themed film should be treated like any other dramatic picture, with a mixture of styles that included hymns and other types of music. Sinn’s one caveat: “Avoid waltzes,” he advised, “as they are too modern in suggestion, and are not in keeping with the character of the Puritan who abhorred dancing.”^[5]

Some Washington musicians didn’t write Clarence Sinn for advice and instead used his column to help fellow professionals. That’s what Thomas Bruce of the Majestic Theatre in North Yakima did when he provided Sinn a copy of his musical program for Vitagraph’s Four Days a Widow in early 1913. A few months later Bruce was at it again, providing Sinn with a sample program for the Lubin film When Love Leads. In both cases, the columnist printed Bruce’s arrangements for the benefit of other musicians who might later be accompanying these same films.^[6]

As motion pictures increased in length, the type of scoring a musician like Thomas Bruce was doing became more difficult. In addition, with a broader array of subjects being shown onscreen, house musicians were constantly forced to learn new songs and new ways to complement the film selection. With the European war that began in 1914, for example, the movie business responded by producing more pictures with war-related themes, necessitating its own type of musical accompaniment. In a letter to Clarence Sinn, an unnamed Washington musician said his preferred approach was to use the national anthem and patriotic music from the countries depicted onscreen. And yet he was having difficulties because his boss, the exhibitor, was adamantly against the practice because some of the house’s patronage was foreign-born and didn’t take kindly to hearing the patriotic music of their “enemies.” The musician wanted Clarence Sinn’s validation, but here the columnist sided with the exhibitor. While the musician’s approach was logical, ultimately the manager was responsible for the show and was right to concern himself with the feelings of his audience. Rather than play music directly connected to the onscreen foes, Sinn instead suggested the musician adopt a more detached, documentary approach to accompanying war films. “Be neutral,” Sinn advised. “Play marches.”^[7]

Thomas Bruce, who by 1915 had moved from North Yakima to the Rex Theatre in Aberdeen, observed a different problem as films expanded their storytelling methods. In his opinion, production companies were often ignorant of how their films would be accompanied when eventually shown in a theatre. “…[I]n the making of war films (war stories), and a scene happens to show a trumpeter playing ‘Taps,’ ‘Reveille’ or any trumpet call, the scene is only shown about one-fourth of the time it takes to play the call. If [the studios] would only realize that nine-tenth of the theaters employ real musicians [who can play the song itself]…they can improve the story by fifty percent.”^[8] Of course, neither Bruce nor Clarence Sinn could do anything about the matter, but it was a legitimate complaint that filmmakers should put more thought into certain film scenes, with an eye toward the how those images would eventually play out with musical accompaniment.

Of course, as much as musicians like E.A. Dunn and Thomas Bruce took their craft seriously, there were others, on occasion, who did not. An issue that vexed exhibitors throughout the silent era was the musician who, instead of playing music that complimented the screen action, chose to play selections that commented directly on it. By the end of any film engagement, the house musician(s) would have seen a picture multiple times, had a good feel for how the show was going over, and sometimes took it upon themselves to enliven a bad film with creative musical selections. That’s understandable – many silents were formulaic, tedious and occasionally silly, with melodramatic scenes that didn’t land as the filmmakers intended. So when patrons were forced to sit through a stinker, sometimes the house musicians tried to enliven the proceedings on their own. In 1915, for example, the music situation was so out of hand in some of Spokane’s smaller theaters that the City Federation of Women’s Clubs undertook a campaign to rectify the situation. The issue was, in their minds, an offshoot of earlier attempts to censor films, with Mrs. Evelyn Heath arguing that it was the group’s goal to make the use of “appropriate” film music a requirement for any Spokane theatre. “In the discussion it developed that hereafter when the moving picture show piano or organ player executes ‘Sparklets’ or some of the later popular song hits, at a time when the villain, on the screen, is about to plunge a stiletto into the back of the golden-haired heroine, or pumps out the Lohengrin wedding march as the unfaithful husband flirts with the ballet dancer, he or she may have to account to the City Federation of Women’s Organizations.”^[9] A dire threat indeed.

Those incidents aside, no one would argue that music wasn’t an important part of the equation by 1915, or that it helped bring the viewer into the screen story. But, whereas trade paper columns like Clarence Sinn’s often helped musicians with specific issues, the growing length of feature films was requiring ever-more complicated musical arrangements. Fortunately, by the mid- to late teens some (though not all) features were released with studio-generated “cue sheets,” providing house musicians with suggestions on what to play and when. Cue sheets, when available, were a godsend for suburban and small-town theatres, since these venues often didn’t have an extensive musical staff and offered a template on how to accompany a particular film. Whereas big city musicians might preview a film several days in advance, then use a mixture of cue sheet music and other selections to create a program, that wasn’t an option for most smaller theatres, where the picture sometimes arrived with little time to spare. Musicians in those houses benefited from cue sheets in that it allowed them to present the film immediately, while gradually perfecting the accompaniment over the first few screenings.^[10] An offshoot to cue sheets became prevalent in the early 1920s, in which small companies emerged offering subscription services featuring non-copyrighted music for a variety of screen situations, and sometimes produced entire scores for certain film releases.

Emphasizing a house’s musical program was a way to distinguish the theatre, with many advertising their musicians or the song titles as a way to attract patrons.^[11] Theatres with large pipe organs, as well, frequently promoted the instrument as much as the artist behind the console. New theatre openings frequently touted the size and/or expense lavished on the house’s organ, and even existing venues upgraded their units on a regular basis, ensuring that they could compete with others houses in the area. In Washington this created somewhat of an arms race, but it was also true that bigger wasn’t always better. When the Regent Theatre in Tacoma installed a new Hope-Jones Wurlitzer organ in mid-1916, they overestimated the house’s ability to handle an instrument of that size. The unit proved so large that the venue had no choice but to install it behind the screen, out of sight, instead of in front where organs were traditionally placed.^[12]

Sometimes the instruments or house musicians had to cede the spotlight for temporary guest engagements. It happened to the best of them – even Oliver Wallace. In mid-December 1915, for example, manager James Clemmer brought Guatemalan President Manuel Estrada Cabrera’s marimba band to the Clemmer Theatre for a special engagement, the group having gained notoriety while appearing at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco earlier that year. These “swarthy musicians,” according to Motion Picture News, earned a standing ovation at the Clemmer after their opening number, a rendition of the Guatemalan classic “Stars and Stripes Forever.” That was actually their appeal – the group brought Guatemalan music to the ears of many Americans through a combination of traditional selections and interpretations of popular hits, including waltzes and Hawaiian songs.^[13]

These guest engagements occurred from time-to-time prior to World War I, but really took off in the 1920s, when many of Washington’s large urban theatres, in particular, began curating their musical programs as much as their film bills. In October 1923, for example, Robert W. Bender of Columbia Theatre engaged the 20-strong brass band from the U.S.S. Idaho, then anchored in Elliott Bay. To celebrate their appearance, Bender had the venue decked out with nautical flags, cutouts in the shape of life preservers and arranged for some short films depicting Navy life.^[14] And just six months later, Frank Steffy of the Coliseum engaged James DeLuca (“The Singing Sensation of the United States Navy”) to perform over a five-week period beginning in July 1924. DeLuca, a member of the Pacific Fleet on the U.S.S. Mississippi, was engaged via a special arrangement with the U.S. Department of the Navy. He was so well received at the Coliseum that he was eventually engaged by owner John von Herberg for an additional three weeks, touring houses in Bremerton, Tacoma, Yakima, Wenatchee and Portland.^[15]

A different kind of special engagement occurred in 1924 when Seattle’s Columbia Theatre engaged Raymond Baird to conduct the house orchestra. “Raymond Baird, the 8-year-old music master who is appearing at The Columbia, is nothing else than a musical marvel,” went one of the venue’s publicity pieces, which dubbed the boy “Little Sousa.” “The little curly-haired lad amazes his audience by his orchestral direction, and his instrument playing is phenomenal. To see the boy direct Liborius Hauptmann [leader of the Columbia orchestra, who temporarily abdicated his position] and his aggregation of musicians is a sight not often witnessed.” Baird was such a hit with audiences that he was kept on for an additional 10 days (likely to Hauptmann’s annoyance), for a total of almost three weeks spent at the Columbia.^[16]

It wasn’t always necessary to bring in guest performers to keep things fresh. For an organization like Greater Theatres, which had houses throughout Washington, Oregon and into Montana, bands (or simply musical directors like Oliver Wallace) could be shuffled between houses as a way to provide variety and novelty. Wallace made numerous appearances along the Greater Theatres circuit and was almost always tapped to helm the organ whenever the company opened a new venue. Even a house that was just changing its musical director could use the occasion to its benefit. In 1926, manager R.E. Charles of the Everett Theatre decided to make the arrival of his new organist the highlight of the week. In addition to an expanded musical program, Charles teamed up with the Great Northern Railroad to build a stage setting that resembled the platform at the Everett station. At each show, the house lights dimmed but spotlights revealed that the new organist was nowhere to be seen, or at least until the curtains opened to reveal the platform and an arriving train. To the applause and whistles of the gathered audience, the new organist suddenly appeared in one of the train windows, grabbed his bag and stepped off onto the platform, basking in the adulation until he walked to the side of the stage, down a set stairs, then took his seat at the house organ and launched into his performance.^[17]

Pomp and circumstance aside, these organists and orchestra leaders did more than just arrange and play music. They could also help organize an array of sound effects for the feature films, though this wasn’t a regular practice. Sound effects grew in popularity during the teens, as exhibitors and musicians began upping the showmanship in their presentations. When Seattle’s Mission Theatre booked a film with scenes from the 1916 Pendleton Round-Up, they not only had the entire staff dress in western garb but they decided to inject some additional (and entirely unexpected) realism in the middle of the film. With the audience paying rapt attention to the screen, and with no warning whatsoever, the organist suddenly stopped playing in the middle of a mock gun battle, rose from his seat and produced a revolver, firing a series of blank shots that were perfectly timed with the onscreen action.^[18] While such effects could be overused, when done correctly they could plunge the audience even deeper into the action, providing a thrill that added to the patrons’ enjoyment.^[19] “‘[T]here are times when the ear can be appealed to as well as the eye,’” Spokane manager Ralph Ruffner told Moving Picture World in 1916, “‘and the effect synchronized will invariably add to the picture rather than detract.’”^[20] Back in the nickelodeon days, when Ruffner was working as a pianist, he learned this first hand when the house was showing a western in which a bronco suddenly reared and came barreling toward the camera. The move by the animal was surprising and startling; even moreso was when Ruffner leapt from behind his piano and shouted, “Look out!!,” catching everyone in the theatre off guard. Later, Ruffner used a similar trick as a manager when he screened the 1915 version of The Shooting of Dan McGrew. He hired a young lady to be on hand for all seven daily shows, primed for the moment when the title card reading “A woman screamed and the lights went out” flashed oncreen. At each performance, when that moment came, the musicians suddenly stopped playing, all the house lights (except the projector) went out and the woman let out a piercing shriek from behind the screen. For this, she earned $5 a day for the McGrew run.

Tacoma-born Eddie Zollman helmed the organ console at a number of Northwest movie houses in the 1920s, and fondly recalled the era half a century later. Zollman wasn’t a musician of Oliver Wallace’s caliber, but carved out a modest career in local theatres, followed by stints in radio and, later, television. He eventually came back to silent cinema in his 60s, occasionally playing organ for the revival films being shown at the Granada Organ Loft in West Seattle. “‘Playing for silent films [was] one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had in all my years as a musician,’” Zollman recalled in 1973. “‘Cueing the emotional shifts in the movie requires spur of the moment improvisations, [the] test of a good musician…Sometimes when I’m playing that Wurlitzer…I get the feeling that the composer is playing instead of me, passing on his music.’”^[21]

It was a return to his early days, when Zollman typically flew solo, helming the theatre organ and providing most, if not all of the accompaniment required for the pictures. That wasn’t uncommon for the size of houses he usually played, but there were larger outfits in Washington’s urban centers offering much more elaborate setups, not only for incidental film music but also with their own, expanded musical programs on a scale that rivaled the pictures themselves.

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] W. Stephen Bush, “Hints to Exhibitors,” Moving Picture World, 24 October 1908, Page 317.
[2] Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (New York: Columbia University Press – 2004), Pages 200 and 204.
[3] Letter from E.A. Dunn, printed in Clarence E. Sinn, “Music for the Picture,” Moving Picture World, 14 January 1911, Page 76.
[4] Letter from unnamed Everett musician, printed in Clarence E. Sinn, “Music for the Picture,” Moving Picture World, 18 February 1911, Page 353.
[5] Letter from “Puget Sound,” printed in Clarence E. Sinn, “Music for the Picture,” Moving Picture World, 11 April 1911, Page 707.
[6] See letters from Thomas Bruce, printed in Clarence E. Sinn, “Music for the Picture,” Moving Picture World, 18 January 1913, Page 254; and Clarence E. Sinn, “Music for the Picture,” Moving Picture World, 8 April 1913, Page 985.
[7] Clarence E. Sinn, “Music for the Picture,” Moving Picture World, 17 October 1914, Pages 339-340.
[8] Letter from Thomas Bruce, printed in Clarence E. Sinn, “Making the Picture Fit the Music,” Moving Picture World, 27 February 1915, Page 1303.
[9] S. Clark Patchin, “Spokane Women’s Clubs Insist on Good Music,” Moving Picture World, 18 December 1915, Page 2225.
[10] Altman, Page 346.
[11] Ibid., Page 318.
[12] “‘Split Reel’ Notes for Theater Men,” Motography, 8 July 1916, Page 76.
[13] “Guatemalan Marimba Band Draws Crowds to Seattle Theatre,” Motion Picture News, 8 January 1916, Page 140.
[14] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 17 November 1923, Page 2391.
[15] See “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 26 July 1924, Page 467; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 30 August 1924, Page 1166.
[16] See “Raymond Baird – Columbia,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 November 1924, Page 11; “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 29 November 1924, Page 2863; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 13 December 1924, Page 3084. As a 10-year-old, Raymond Baird would be back in Seattle in 1926, splitting his time between the Columbia, again, and Frank Steffy’s Coliseum. (“Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 31 July 1926, Page 423.)
[17] “Organist ‘Railroaded’ First Night He Played,” Moving Picture World, 6 November 1926, Page 34.
[18] “‘Split Reel’ Notes for Theatre Men,” Motography, 7 October 1916, Page 812.
[19] See Kathryn H. Fuller, At the Picture Show: Small-Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press – 1996), Page 71.
[20] Ralph Rufner to S. Clark Patchin, “Do Special Effects Help?,” Moving Picture World, 8 January 1916, Page 283.
[21] Steve Chensvold, “He Organ-izes to Give ‘Silents’ Life,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, 30 August 1973, Page A14.

In large urban theatres music became a spectacle unto itself in the 1920s, but the era of the super orchestra began with the opening of Seattle’s Coliseum Theatre on January 8, 1916. Operated by Claude Jensen and John von Herberg, the house was not only one of the finest in Washington but, right out of the gate, claimed to have the highest-paid orchestra in the United States, if not the world. Their group of eight musicians, led by conductor Mischa Guterson, formerly of the Chicago Grand Opera Company, reportedly cost Jensen and von Herberg more than $50,000 year in salaries.^[1] (In 2025 dollars, roughly the equivalent of $180,000 per musician.) Several members were born and trained in Russia, and all had experience in concert venues throughout the United States and Europe. Taking on an elevated role, Guterson helped distinguish the Coliseum offerings by not only accompanying the picture at hand, but also by developing separate musical programs that were played in addition to the venue’s screen offerings.

Mischa Guterson’s Russian orchestra set a high bar for musicians in Seattle, becoming an attraction in their own right at the Coliseum. Unfortunately, theirs was a short-lived engagement. On the evening of June 10, barely six months into their run, the orchestra leader got into a volatile argument with Claude Jensen, co-owner of the Coliseum, which ended in a fistfight.^[2] The flare up was allegedly over an encore that Guterson failed to play, but the underlying issue seems to have been Jensen’s belief that the musicians were being paid more than they were worth. Mischa Guterson claimed he was sucker-punched by Jensen during a shouting match, and when his brother George (also a member of the Coliseum orchestra) came to help, he too was attacked by Jensen. The theatre owner was arrested for third degree assault and paid $200 bail but claimed that Guterson started the incident by cursing at him. He also claimed to have pulled off Guterson’s glasses before striking him, though the conductor’s facial injuries told a slightly different story.

Mischa Guterson and his Russian orchestra were promptly dismissed from the Coliseum, only to be immediately snapped up by James Clemmer for his own theatre. Clemmer knew a good opportunity when he saw it; after adding Guterson to the bill, he began promoting the Clemmer Theatre as Seattle’s “House of Music,” with three daily concerts in addition to special musical events held every Tuesday and Sunday.^[3] That put Clemmer head-to-head with the Coliseum, which brought in a new 12-piece orchestra to take Guterson’s place, which they dubbed the “Coliseum Greater Orchestra.” Claude Jensen (attempting to move on from the bad press he got from the Guterson fight) took to the Coliseum stage following their debut performance and addressed the crowd. “‘The new orchestra is permanently engaged,’” Jensen announced to wild applause. “‘I consider it the finest orchestral organization ever heard here or at any other photoplay theater in western America. It is…a thing of great importance in a great playhouse like the Coliseum [and] something I have wanted ever since the house opened, but never before obtained.’”^[4]

With the Coliseum and Clemmer trading blows over their musical performances, other venues in downtown Seattle also got into the act. Over at the Strand, manager William Smyth brought a group of musicians up from San Francisco to play under the direction of Franz Adelmann, known in local circles for stints at the Rathskeller Café and Butler Hotel. Adelmann would also perform special musical concerts at the Strand every Monday and Thursday, and did so from an orchestra pit that manager Smyth completely renovated for the new outfit.^[5] But just a few weeks into Herr Adelmann’s engagement, Smyth cut the musicians loose after the move failed to increase the Strand’s box office enough to justify the outlay. No worry, however, since Adelmann and company were promptly hired by Claude Jensen, who was only too eager to dump the Coliseum Greater Orchestra after singing their praises only a few weeks earlier. With their new gig, Adelmann’s orchestra was augmented with four additional musicians, raising the body count to 12.^[6]

Manager William Smyth may have given up on Franz Adelmann, but he didn’t give up on building a strong musical program at the Strand. About a year later, after closing the house for refurbishing, the Strand reopened on September 22, 1917, with an orchestra of 12 under the direction of Russian violinist Gregor Cherniavsky. Later, in 1925, the Strand orchestra pit was enlarged yet again to accommodate even more musicians, along with a new Steinway Concert Grand piano, purchased from New York and shipped to Seattle via the Panama Canal.^[7]

Not every house, of course, could participate in this musical arms race. But they could still jump on the bandwagon by putting additional emphasis on their musical numbers, no matter who was playing them or how many musicians were part of the ensemble. The trend was clear: like the illustrated singers of an earlier period, metropolitan area theatres were using music and special concert features to distinguish one venue from the next. Fred B. Warren, a Vice President with the Goldwyn Distributing Corporation in New York, toured several West Coast cities in early 1918 and had excellent things to say about Seattle’s film scene – in particular the musical offerings in its downtown theatres. In an article that ran both in Moving Picture World and Motion Picture News, Warren singled out the musical offerings at the Clemmer Theatre as a specific highlight:

“‘[Clemmer’s] musical program, which is inseparably linked to picture showmanship, was the finest thing I heard west of Chicago. Guterson’s remarkable orchestra is the best musical organization of Seattle, and Guterson, who used to be at [Hotel] Rector (now the Claridge) [in Times Square,] New York, is merely Guterson in Seattle, as you would speak of Caruso or Melba. To him Mr. Clemmer attributes much of the credit for the present splendid success of [musical entertainment at] the Clemmer Theater.’”^[8]

The Clemmer won the day in Fred Warren’s mind, but music would be a big selling point at Seattle’s Coliseum from the day it opened until well after the introduction of sound. In the early 1920s manager Frank Steffy was playing up his musicians, with an orchestra that had swelled to 40 members under the direction of Arthur Kay. Kay’s musical program included a pair of Sunday concerts, presented at no additional cost to the patron, along with special contests organized around their musical program. By this time the venue, referred to as “Seattle’s Symphony Center,” had a dedicated in-house music library, including sheet music, cue sheets and records, allowing the house musicians to create musical programs and special concerts with little trouble.

Big orchestras like the Coliseum’s were expensive – one of the largest operating expenses for an urban theatre. Of course, some of those costs could be reduced if the house’s music director doubled as its manager. That’s what the Greater Theatres Company attempted in 1923 when they elevated Samuel K. Wineland to manage the Strand in Seattle. Wineland previously led the house orchestra, but his promotion to dual roles allowed the venue to make much out of this unusual arrangement. Wineland continued leading the house orchestra for concert interludes but relinquished those duties when it came to accompanying the actual films; even so, on weekends and holidays he spent a lot of time running between the orchestra pit and the manager’s office. Samuel Wineland wasn’t the only musical feature at the Strand during this time, either. A few weeks into his management stint, the venue brought in John Henry Lyons to lead a song program called “Sing Them Again,” in which Lyons presented popular tunes that could be sung by the audience while the lyrics were projected onscreen. Organized through the Educational Film exchange, Lyons toured several Northwest theatres contracted to Educational’s film service, with each show accompanied by a special reel of film for each song presentation.^[9]

The Wineland experiment at the Strand didn’t last for long, and pretty soon Greater Theatres moved him over to the Coliseum, where he took over musical duties there. Working under manager Frank Steffy, in the fall of 1924 Wineland organized a special Sunday concert where he brought in a Scandinavian chorus of 60 to augment his own orchestra of 30. This stunt was so successful that the Coliseum announced an entire series of international concerts, with Wineland developing separate programs around the music of England, France, Germany, etc.^[10] These were rolled out in the spring of 1925 in series of hour-long events the house gave on eight successive Sundays. Like the original Scandinavian show, they were so well attended that the Coliseum organized second series of “national” concerts later that summer.^[11] This was on top of what had become a daily orchestral concert at the Coliseum, featuring solos by select house musicians as well as local singers or musicians who were brought in for special appearances.

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] See “Seattle’s Big Coliseum Opened,” Motography, 29 January 1916, Page 245; and “The Coliseum’s Fine Orchestra,” Moving Picture World, 19 February 1916, Page 1171.
[2] See “Get Into Fight Over an Encore,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 June 1916, Page 2; and “Theatrical Man is Placed Under Arrest,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 13 June 1916, Page 12.
[3] A.R.M. Sutton, “Seattle House Gives Concerts,” Motography, 10 October 1917, Page 836.
[4] See “‘Split Reel’ Notes for Theater Men,” Motography, 22 July 1916, Page 198; and A.R.M. Sutton, “Splendid Orchestras in Seattle Houses,” Motography, 29 July 1916, Page 249.
[5] See S.J. Anderson, “Strand’s New Eight-Piece Orchestra,” Moving Picture World, 7 October 1916, Page 116; and “‘Split Reel’ Notes for Theater Men,” Motography, 7 October 1916, Page 812.
[6] See S.J. Anderson, “W.H. Smyth Dismisses Orchestra” and “Coliseum Takes Adelmann Orchestra,” Moving Picture News, 28 October 1916, Page 591.
[7] See S.J. Anderson, “Seattle to Have Third Orchestra for Interpreting Pictures,” Moving Picture World, 6 October 1917, Page 121; “Seattle’s Strand Redecorated,” Motography, 20 October 1917, Page 835; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 25 April 1925, Page 1858.
[8] See “Big Days These for Western Theaters,” Moving Picture World, 4 May 1918, Page 683; and F.B. Warren, “Goldwyn Official Points to Splendid Advertising Work by Western Exhibitors,” Motion Picture News, 4 May 1918, Page 2671.
[9] See “Wineland Shows Versatility as Seattle Manager-Musician,” Moving Picture World, 27 October 1923, Page 733; “Pacific Northwest Booming; Exhibitors Optimistic,” Moving Picture World, 10 November 1923, Page 227; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 5 July 1924, Page 101. Leroy Johnson used a similar singing program as part of one his promotions in late 1924. Duplicating a stunt that had found great success at a Jensen and von Herberg house in Portland, Johnson’s “Weekly Song Contest” saw the Liberty advertising the five songs well in advance of the planned Sunday concert. Organist Oliver Wallace would then feature the five songs, all well-known selections, and a call would go out to the audience for volunteers who would like to take to the stage to lead the theatre in song, karaoke-style. The concerts lasted a little over an hour, with cash prizes awarded the volunteer singers that garnered the most audience applause. These contests were continued off and on well into 1926. (See “American Theatre in Spokane Opens with Flawless Program,” Moving Picture World, 3 January 1925, Page 42; and “Sunday Song Contests at the Liberty, Seattle, Motion Picture News, 23 January 1926, Page 498.)
[10] See “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 1 November 1924, Page 2241; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 8 November 1924, Page 2412.
[11] See “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 2 February 1924, Page 526; “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 21 March 1925, Page 1252; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 11 July 1925, Page 221.