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concertinas in the movies


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I feel sure the "Wayback machine" has a version of this thread, so forgive me of bringing it up again.

What brought this up is that in getting rid of my boxes, I came upon my "silent" concertina.

Many years ago I got a casting call from a producer who was putting on "Carnival".

The show opens with an actor, alone on stage, playing the theme song "Love makes the World Go 'Round" on a concertina.

The producer said he had tried an accordion in the pit, but it didn't sound right.

So I did an audition, and got the position.

Now, the next thing was to provide the actor with a concertina.

So I took an old 20-button Anglo and gutted it.

Then, during rehersals I had a spotlight trained on my hands so the actor could copy the moves.

Mostly, they just pump away!

 

Bob Hope in the Paleface

Bing Crosby in High Society

Desi Arnez in Forever Darling

Stan Laurel in The Big Noise

? in The Milagro Beanfield War

Alf Edwards in Moby Dick?

 

Cheers,

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There was a thread in the old forum system that got up to maybe 60 movies. It happened that I manually archived all of it on my computer (don't ask me why, but I did go to an engineering school). It is on my long ought-to-do list to get it posted back up here - really!

 

Meantime, good story. Think of us fellow addicts here when getting rid of boxes, Geo!

 

Ken

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On 8/15/2021 at 8:26 PM, Geoff Wooff said:

As  far  as I  recall   it  was  an EC  and played by  Alf Edwards , no  less!

I think this is correct, though there seems to be some question about whether it was 

actually Alf Edwards on the screen in that early scene in the film. See:

 

Arthur, D., Bert - The Life and Times of A. L. Lloyd, pp.226-227, Pluto Press, London,

2012. ISBN: 978-0-7453-3252-9.

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