Ben Bernie and All the Lads
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Ben Bernie and All the Lads |
| Original title | Ben Bernie and All the Lads |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1925 |
| length | 12 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lee De Forest |
| production | Lee De Forest |
| occupation | |
Ben Bernie and All the Lads is a musical short film produced by Lee De Forest in about late 1924 or 1925 . The violinist Ben Bernie and his orchestra played a. a. the later jazz standard " Sweet Georgia Brown ". The film is considered a forerunner of the soundies .
background
The film Ben Bernie and All the Lads is considered one of the early attempts to document jazz music in the new medium of sound film . The jazz track Sweet Georgia Brown , written by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey, was interpreted. The film also included the first saxophone solo to be documented on film, performed by Jack Pettis ; The pianist was Oscar Levant .
The film is based on the experiments of engineers Orlando E. Kellum (1889–1942) and Lee De Forest, who developed image-sound coupling techniques in film and produced a number of music films. Other early music films by the team included A Bit of Jazz (Orlando E. Kellum 1921, with banjo player Fred Van Eps ), Songs of Yesterday (Lee DeForest 1922, with Abbie Mitchell's New York Dixie Review), and Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake Sing Snappy Songs (1923).
A few years before the breakthrough of the music film medium with the release of the Warner Brothers / Vitaphone film The Jazz Singer (1927), music film began with a series of sound films produced by De Forest and marketed through theaters. The musical film Ben Bernie and All the Lads was produced by De Forest Phonofilm Corporation, which, however, had little commercial success with the marketing of the film.
In addition to the fragment (2:42) by Sweet Georgia Brown , the other pieces, which were created in 1925, were only restored and published in later years. These are the titles
- A medley of songs and a. by George Gershwin and Vincent Youmans , consisting of “Rose Marie” (published 1924, by Otto Harbach , Oscar Hammerstein II and Rudolf Friml ), “ Oh, Lady Be Good! "(1924, by George and Ira Gershwin )," Tell Her in the Springtime "(1924, by Irving Berlin )," Rose Marie "(reprise)," Indian Love Call "(1924, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II and Rudolf Friml), " Tea for Two " (1924, Vincent Youmans, Irving Caesar ) and "Fascinatin 'Rhythm" (1924, George and Ira Gershwin).
- Craving (published 1925 and written by Ben Bernie, Philip Charig, Kenneth Casey and William Lewis),
- Titina (published under the title “Je cherche après Titine”, written by Elisha Ronn, Marcel Bertal, Louis Maubon, Leo Daniderff), a song that was played in French music halls and dance cafes around the turn of the century . In 1936 the song was used in the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times
Some of these tracks were recorded by Ben Bernie and his orchestra for Vocalion Records in late 1924 / early 1925 .
Track list
- Medley of Songs [0: 00-3: 59]
- Craving [4: 00-6: 36]
- Titina [6: 37-9: 18]
- Sweet Georgia Brown [9: 19-12: 02]
restoration
The restoration of the entire music film was carried out by Ray Pointer; the full 12-minute film was released in 2003 in the compilation First Sound of the Movies, Birth of the Talkies .
Web links
- Ben Bernie and All the Lads in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Encyclopedia of African American Music edited by Emmett G. Price, p. 640.
- ↑ Hollywood and the American Historical Film , edited by JE Smyth, 2012, p. 101.
- ↑ Jazz in Film: Contributions to the History and Theory of an Inter-Media Phenomenon , edited by Willem Strank, Claus Tieber. LIT Verlag, 2014 [Series: Filmwissenschaft, Vol. 16]
- ↑ Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake Sing Snappy Songs. Internet Movie Database , accessed November 10, 2015 .
- ↑ Information at Red Hot Jazz
- ^ Edwin M. Bradley: The First Hollywood Sound Shorts, 1926-1931 . 2005