Mandolins in the Movies

[SteveH]

There is a mandolin player in 'The Royal Tenebaums'. I think he was part of a classical quartet that played during the wedding.

[Kelly_guy]

Regarding the bowl-back mandolin being bowed, as the OP mentioned--this isn't so odd as might sound. I gather the violin was developed in the 15th century when lute players started playing their instruments with a bow.

Since the movie you mentioned is a fairy-tale medieval setting (isn't it?) that might not be too far off the mark. A bowl-back mandolin isn't a lute, sure--but it's a lot closer to a fiddle than a lute is.

[8ch(pl)]

Tommy Lee jones made a film about 5 years ago called "The Good Old Boys", after the book by Elmer keltn. It is about the end of the cowboy era in texas. it featured a musical number with period Gibson A and F4 ina duet. Good film by the way.

[rixter]

My favorite mandolin sighting is the classic Humphrey Bogart movie "To Have And Have Not". Makes me wish they'd made records of movie soundtracks back in those days, the swing that pops up in various scenes is pretty tantalizing.

[Eugene]

...in the 15th century when lute players started playing their instruments with a bow.

Bowed lute?! This doesn't sound like any standard technique of which I've heard. Where did you come by this info, Kelly_guy?

[Kelly_guy]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin#History

"The violin apparently emerged in Italy in the early 16th century, when musicians began to play the lute with the bow used by the Arab rebab."

Looking around at other "history of the violin" sites, I suspect that wikipedia is summarizing a rather complicated history in a slightly incorrect way.

[Eugene]

Hmmm...they must be generalizing things not often called "lute" as lutes: e.g., the rebec, a small lute-like fiddle.

[PCypert]

Hey all,
Was watching Back to the Future 3 the other day. The ZZ top bluegrass band had someone with an oval hole in the background.
Paul

[mandodude]

There's this old 1987 flick called Mannequin that starred Andrew McCarthy and featured Kim Cattrall as this hot, department store mannequin that comes to life. #Anyway, in this one scene, this mannequin, y'see, she takes off her.......


...What??...

...What's that??...

...Not mannequin, but mandolin??


Oops...

...never mind...

[OdnamNool]

mandismantle! #Cool! #Oh boy! #Are we gunna start havin' fun again?

[Paul Kotapish]

My favorite mandolin sighting is the classic Humphrey Bogart movie "To Have And Have Not". Makes me wish they'd made records of movie soundtracks back in those days, the swing that pops up in various scenes is pretty tantalizing.

There actually was a soundtrack release for To Have and to Have Not," but it's been out of print for over 50 years.

Hoagy Carmichael and a small jazz combo provided most of the on-screen music for Howard Hawks's To Have and to Have Not, an adaptation of a Hemingway story. Carmichael, one of the all-time great American songwriters, played the role of Cricket and performed on the piano with a small jazz combo in the movie. But as I recall, Carmichael also played mandolin on occasion. I think he was the one who intoned "soybean, soybean" in fifths as he tuned. I don't recall whether it was Carmichael who played mandolin in this movie, but his tunes are a staple of the jazz-mandolin repertoire. It's a great flick, in any case, and well worth watching, for Bogie and for Lauren Bacall, who made her breakthrough appearance in that film.

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

Great supporting actors too, including Walter Brennan and Carmichael, and the music is tops.

"Was you ever bit by a dead bee?"

[Jim Garber]

I can't recall what this photo is from but I know it is Hoagy. he is playing a uke, tho.

[futrconslr]

Jim,
\Thanks for the info on crockett.....I never knew he was a fiddle player.....
I spotted another mando....in a dance scene in the movie "Wild Bill" starring Jeff Bridges there is a guy playing a snake head. I didnt realize gibson made snake heads in the 1860s

[Paul Kotapish]

Had another mando-in-the-movies sighting over the weekend while watching John Ford's classic film adaptation of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

There's a great scene set at a community dance in one of the government-sponsored migrant-worker camps. There is a little stringband playing, and there's a brief shot of a very young lad strumming a blonde Gibson A for all he's worth. Too brief to discern more specifics, but it looked appropriate for the time and place.

Great movie, BTW. Hadn't seen it in years and I really enjoyed viewing it again.

Those dances were for real, too. I've heard field recordings made at those camps, and there was some great playing and singing. For the curious, here's a link to a cool site about the cultural experience of the dust-bowl migrants, including a fair amount of info about music in the camps.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html

PK

[Brookside]

Was just watching Kramer vs. Kramer. The opening song is a classical guitar and mandolin duet. Within the first few minutes Dustin Hoffman is walking down a New York City street and he walks right by the guitar and mandolin players performing on the sidewalk. A nice surprise sighting.

[Jon Hall]

Re: David Crockett...I saw a photo recently of a violin that was documented as being his. I'm sure it was pre - Alamo for it to have survived. I also heard that it was recorded that he knew the Temperance (Teetotaler's)Reel. That's a fairly challenging tune. He must have been a better than average player.

Since I'm a very native Texan,(my ancestor was a major in Sam Houston's army) I've heard some stories about Colonel Crockett's musicianship. He reportedly jammed, at the Alamo, with a Scotsman that played the pipes. The diaries kept by Mexican soldiers said that Crockett would play Mexican songs at night in an effort to make the Mexicans homesick.

[Plamen Ivanov]

Hello,

I appear with my mandolin in a movie called "Grey Zone" with Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino and Steve Buscemi. It`s a movie about the concetration camps during WW II and is very painful to be watched. The scene in that I appear is also hard. A classical orchestra plays Strauss` "Roses From the South", while the newcomers in the camp are entering the desinfection premises and the chimneys of the burning chambers are smoking in the back. Terrible... In fact we are two mandolin players in the front of the orchestra. The camera starts from me, so you will be able to see even my pick and the mother-of pearl inlay of my mandolin. The colleague plays a flatback mandolin.

Good luck!

[Paul Kotapish]

Saw Get Low over the weekend, a great little movie with splendid performances from the Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Luke Black, and Bill Murray. Lovely soundtrack featuring lots of solo Dobro work by Jerry Douglas plus some dandy mandolin and fiddle work by Stuart Duncan, vocals by Alison Krauss, and some stringband segments by the Steeldrivers--who also appear in the film playing vintage instruments (a Gibson A of some sort--I couldn't verify the model).

The music is used sparsely throughout--in a style reminiscent of some Ry Cooder soundtracks--and there are some period pop and jazz numbers on tap, too, including pieces from Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman, the Inkspots, et al. There are some overtly schmaltzy string arrangements in a few spots, but overall the soundtrack is first rate.

The movie is well worth seeing for many reasons, and the great music just adds to the pleasure. Check it out.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/get...ign-mpt=uo%3D4

[pglasse]

...there's a nice scene in John Sayle's excellent Matewan where a bunch of the miners from different parts of the world are all camped out in the same place and the different strains of music--including an Italian mandolin--all come together for a brief musical meeting of the minds.

Mandolins aside, Matewan is a great film. Bluegrass trivia buffs might want to know that the mother of Sirius radio DJ and wonderful bluegrass singer Chris Jones acts in that film as well. You'll see her in the outdoor camp scenes.

[Matt DeBlass]

Don't forget in TV land (or on "TV Land") the Andy Griffith Show, which featured periodic performances by "The Darling Family," who in real life were the Dillards bluegrass band, including Dean Webb on mando.

[barney 59]

All The Pretty Horses ----Marty Stuart did the sound track after they scraped a sound track by Daniel Lanois --Lanois got mad and would never license his version for release so we may never know what that would have been but Marty's is pretty darn good. The movie " Meet Me in St.Louis " with Judy Garland has a scene with a Lyon and Healey bowlback that is prominent as a prop in a scene. That mandolin came up for sale a couple of years ago with all the provenance intact. Went cheap too---$250 about.

[Elliot Luber]

There's a Woody Allen movie where he walks into a room full of exotic musical instruments and there are a number of mandolins on the wall. Not sure which movie.

[Jim]

The original "Flight of the phoenix" has a scene on the plane before it crashes with one of the roughnecks playing an OM.

[bones12]

"Get Low", the new film with Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, has a scene with a nice little rural combo playing Whiskey Before Breakfast with a nice 30's Gibson A playing along (? the Steeldrivers) in the band. Jerry Douglas does much of the soundtrack. Doug in Vermont

[journeybear]

Also, in "Winter's Bone," there is a scene in which someone's birthday is being celebrated by having a few folks over and enjoying some living room pickin'. Someone is playing a nice non-Gibson F style, which seemed a bit incongruous in the dirt-poor rural Ozark community depicted - but that's OK. Worse was the lead chores were handled by fiddle and banjo; the mandolin didn't get a break.