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Organs On Screen (not The Screen!)


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I saw that part a couple of weeks ago on the Prosieben channel (Germany). The organ looked familiar to me right away (and I've also read before that the series was being filmed in NY) - it is the Klais organ in St. Peter's Lutheran Church, built in 1977 with 32 stops on two manuals. See a photo and the stoplist here.

I think you can see the back of the organ very clearly from the street through a large plate glass window; chiefly the pipes for both stopped 16' wooden registers. I heard four recitals in one day there once, including some stunning playing from Paul Jacobs.

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  • 9 months later...
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The most recent episode of "Leverage", entitled "The Van Gogh Job", featured the 4/18 Wurlitzer organ at the Oaks Park skating rink in Portland, Oregon. This unusual organ was quite an essential part of the plot, with one of the characters taking lessons on it in a sort of flashback. Plus, it's not often you get to see bad guys felled by an organ pipe.

 

I believe Bravo carries "Leverage" in the UK, so hopefully this episode will air for you soon. While I wouldn't call it high art, it is light-hearted and fun.

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The most recent episode of "Leverage", entitled "The Van Gogh Job", featured the 4/18 Wurlitzer organ at the Oaks Park skating rink in Portland, Oregon. This unusual organ was quite an essential part of the plot, with one of the characters taking lessons on it in a sort of flashback. Plus, it's not often you get to see bad guys felled by an organ pipe.

 

I believe Bravo carries "Leverage" in the UK, so hopefully this episode will air for you soon. While I wouldn't call it high art, it is light-hearted and fun.

 

 

Strange that in all of these interesting posts one quite interesting film has been omitted from the contributions; Led Zeppelins " The Song Remains The Same ". (1976 )

 

Very good gothic views of the case with JPJ playing a very kitsch lily covered Hammond type console!!

 

With ref`e to another poster who mentions the film " If ", the piece of music used was Toccata in F but is referred to by the actor playing the part of the padre as being " by Bach ". Wouldn`t really make much difference to cinemagoers.

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Strange that in all of these interesting posts one quite interesting film has been omitted from the contributions; Led Zeppelins " The Song Remains The Same ". (1976 )

 

Very good gothic views of the case with JPJ playing a very kitsch lily covered Hammond type console!!

 

With ref`e to another poster who mentions the film " If ", the piece of music used was Toccata in F but is referred to by the actor playing the part of the padre as being " by Bach ". Wouldn`t really make much difference to cinemagoers.

 

 

ADDENDUM !!! I forgot to mention the location of the above - Alexandra Palace.

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ADDENDUM !!! I forgot to mention the location of the above - Alexandra Palace.

I`m off on one!!

 

" Rififi " ( 1955 ) good scene and sound track where a bunch of bank robbers plan a heist and blow the safe to the final chords of 565. Good stuff! Ok one doesn`t actually " see" the organ but the sound effect is authentic enough.

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The black & white film "Tiger Bay" starring the late Sir John Mills and his daughter, Hayley Mills. Other stars included Yvonne Mitchell and Horst Buchholz; the latter playing the Polish merchant seaman who murdered his girlfriend.

 

In the film, Hayley Mills sings in the local church choir, and there are shots of an organ being played, as well as shots of various bits of organ sited in what is obviously some sort of gallery position.

 

It's a good film if you like old B & W ones, which I do.....the acting was so much better.

 

MM

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Has the film "prayer for the dying" been seen?, quite a good bit with the IRA chap (Liam Neeson I believe), messing about, prodding the odd key And when the police detective comes into the church, and asks the vicar who it was, to which the reply came "he is the tuner. So the detctive goes up to liam Neeson, and asks him to play something, and after the tension of looking as if he is going o be found out, he only breaks into a Bach Prelude

 

Peter

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  • 4 weeks later...

Not a visual reference to the silver screen this time but a morsel which has stuck in my mind long after I saw the film “Surprise Package” with Yul Brynner as a gangster and Noel Coward a deposed monarch. The film was not in itself particularly noteworthy but one small section near the beginning remains fondly in my memory: the two characters were discussing the circumstances of the king’s overthrowing and his former majesty had just arrived at the part of the story where a bomb was let off, blowing up the cathedral organ. At this point the storyline was briefly interrupted; after the distraction had passed the king asked the gangster, ‘Where were we?’ To which came the reply, ‘You were telling me about the bit where some guy lobbed a pineapple in the juke box’ . . .

 

David Harrison

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There's a rather strange looking organ with excessively long, Etonesque violones in the dining room at Malfoy Manor in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - here's a photo:

 

The_Dark_Lord_ascending_concept_artwork.jpg

 

The sequence was actually shot at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. But is this instrument really present, or is its case a victim of excessive computer graphics?

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The sequence was actually shot at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. But is this instrument really present, or is its case a victim of excessive computer graphics?

Looks to me like a digitally enhanced pic. of Birmingham TH.

How appropriate that servants of the Dark Lord should have an organ in their dining room :P

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Looks to me like a digitally enhanced pic. of Birmingham TH.

How appropriate that servants of the Dark Lord should have an organ in their dining room :P

 

Duuuuhhhhh - that very probably is correct now I think about it. Why in the world? But I did say I thought it looked like a Hill organ (Eton chapel) didn't I!

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  • 3 months later...

Not long ago since I caught this on Televsion

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqWdAdVZydk...D0D51CB253CEADE

 

This is an episode of Rosemary and Thyme,if you skip to around the 9:50 mark you can see / hear the Chichester Cathedral Organ ( there is also a quick view of the console). Forgive me if i'm wrong but the Gentleman sitting in choir stalls to the right of Pam Ferris appears to be Mark Wardell the former Assistant Organist. Just Incase any of you were wondering the fictional DOM turns out to be the Murderer in this episode! (Don't worry im not a huge fan of the show as this post appears to indicate) ;)

 

 

 

Liam

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In the film 'Brassed Off' the Grimley Colliery Band win through to t' 'Grand Finals' at the Albert Hall and travel to London to perform.

 

Sequences are shot travelling into London, the coach arriving at the Albert Hall and instruments being got out of the coach outside the hall. The performance sequence seeingly in the Albert Hall is very impressive, the band performing under the case of the great organ - except it isn't - it's the Town Hall in Birmingham!!

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I don't know if anyone has seen the original film "El Cid," but towards the end, the soundtrack blasts out with a full organ sound, which as a boy, completely stunned me.

 

I suppose good quality sound reproduction was not that common then, and the cinema had a very powerful, full range audio system, which certainly moved air.

 

It was far, far better than the wedding scene in "The Sound of Music."

 

 

MM

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There's a nice shot in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, played by Grumpy FRCO

My son (who, at the age of 4 1/2, is already displaying rather disturbing organ-anorak tendencies) is greatly amused by the fact that this instrument is buttock powered.

(wonder who he's based on ?)

Stokowski?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOES-dS0pG0

The greatest film in which organ music is deployed. Discuss.

 

 

Absolutely Paul forgot about the Godfather I believe its Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor BWV 582 or at least part of it is. I have the box set and listened to the commentary with Francis Ford Coppola and he said he scrapped the original Soundtrack for the Organ music as it created much more tension (which it does!).

 

 

Liam

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...I believe its Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor BWV 582 or at least part of it is...

Also, the scary bit from the D major P&F.

Some years ago, I concluded the first half of a 'greatest hits/easy listening' type recital with this. I invited any non-organists in the audience to see me during the interval if they could tell me in which rather sinister context they might have already heard the Adagio. A couple of people got it right, which was quite encouraging.

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I am staggered that nobody has yet mentioned the organ scene in Disney's "Rescuers" :rolleyes:

You won't want to see it , so don't go here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpP8bNxVdyU

 

Chris Baker - Durham UK

 

===========================

 

 

I want that talking organ in "Beauty and the beast"

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLBhMJpNtZY...feature=related

 

 

MM

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I want that talking organ in "Beauty and the beast"

I would imagine that it is possible to acquire substances which, if ingested shortly before playing or listening, will produce a similar effect...

 

MM, I'm sure that at at some point during your many years' performing in grim northern towns, someone has said to you something along the lines of,

 

'By 'eck, tha' can make th'organ talk'.

 

Maybe they were not speaking figuratively... :rolleyes:

 

Incidentally, what is it with Disney and the organ?

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