Cosponsored by the Wexner Center for the Arts and University Libraries.

Like other creative works, many films from 1923 have entered the public domain this year. Classic releases from the heyday of silent films starred legends such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Safety Last! was highly successful and critically acclaimed when it was released in 1923, and is still considered one of the most significant comedies in film history. It starred Lloyd and secured his career as a featured star.

Join us for a showing of Safety Last! at the Wexner Center for the Arts on Wednesday, November 6 at 7pm, featuring a soundtrack composed by Carl Davis in 1989. Davis has created scores for nearly 60 silent films, and his orchestration for Safety Last! is based on the line-up of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra of the 1920s, and inspired by the popular music of that era.

Another Harold Lloyd film, Dr. Jack (1922), is the subject of a commonly provided ‘cue list’ of music in a periodical of that time. This “Photoplaying” feature from a 1923 issue of the American Organist journal is just one of the countless writings and resources published for practical use of film theatre musicians in the 1910s and 20s. Active organists, conductors, arrangers and publishers authored guidance on matters of style, musical-dramatic moods and effects, and detailed suggestions for scene-by-scene live music selection, as seen in the list provided in the public domain article linked above.

The Ohio State University Libraries’ Silent Film Sheet Music Collection includes hundreds of such musical works arranged for the typical film theatre orchestras of the early 20th century, with parts for each instrument. Here are three examples published in 1923 that have entered the public domain this year and are freely available on this project’s Scores & Audio page:

• Clark, C. Frederick: Midnight (Novelty Fox Trot)
• Coots, J. Fred and Dave Ringle (arr. Ted Eastwood): Home Town Blues
• Savino, Domenico: Misterioso alla Valse (Dramatic Suspense)