ep. 71: Phantoms and Pipe Organs

Ben and Kerr talk about Ben’s busy Halloween season, underscoring the unmasking scene in “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) at Angel Nyack, and his encounters with theater ghosts; also covered are Ben’s accompanying “Her Sister From Paris” (1925) with Constance Talmadge at the Silent Clowns Film Series, the differences between playing a church pipe organ and a theatre organ for silents, and more. The episode includes performance excerpts from Ben’s scores for the two films mentioned above as well as from a show at the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater of Josef Von Sternberg’s “Underworld” (1928).

Show notes for episode 71 can be found here.