The Devil’s Composer

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

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4.7 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Imagine Jaws without the sneaking tuba. Or Psycho without the shrieking violins. Music can help a horror film strike fear in the heart of theatergoers. And you can trace some of these musical scare tactics back to the era of SILENT films — when organists made up film scores on-the-spot.

To celebrate the spooky season this year, we're slashing apart a 1917 silent horror film with composer Andrew Earle Simpson to find out how music can be the beating heart of suspense. Grab your popcorn and get snuggly under the blanket. But be sure to check the closet for a pianist before turning out the lights.

Want to see this movie for yourself? Don’t miss our live screening of The Devil’s Assistant at the National Museum of American History! Join Lizzie, Andrew, and Ryan on Wednesday, October 30th at 7:30pm to see this movie the way it was made to be watched – with live musical accompaniment. We’ll have objects from the Smithsonian collections and audience Q&A. Reserve your FREE tickets here.

Guests:
Andrew Earle Simpson, composer and professor of music at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Ryan Lintelman, curator of entertainment at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a side door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:10.4	I'm Lizzie Peabody. Imagine you're in a dark theater.
0:19.0	Imagine you're in a dark theater.
0:21.0	In front of you, a black and white movie is projected on the screen. You watch as a dozen or so
0:28.3	people dance around a garden. The women are in flouncy dresses, the men in dark dapper suits.
0:35.0	As you watch, they all take each other's hands and dance in a circle,
0:39.0	like they're playing Ring Around the Rosie.
0:41.0	And these are adults.
0:42.0	These are young people in their
0:43.4	20s and there's a woman in the center. Her name is, her character's name is Marta Van Dyne.
0:48.2	And this is Andrew Earl Simpson. He's helping me describe the opening scene
0:53.7	of the 1917 film, The Devil's Assistant.
1:00.2	And there's kind of a jocular feel to the music here.
1:02.5	It's like, it's playful.
1:04.4	It's everyone's in the garden, kicking up their heels
1:07.2	and doing little dances.
1:08.5	That's right.
1:08.9	And then the music kind of sounds like a jig.
1:12.8	And I use a xylophone in the organ
1:15.8	to just add a little bit of lightness to the texture.
1:19.5	You can hear that.
1:21.7	Andrew wrote and recorded the music you're hearing now.
	...

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