Intermissions on Silent Pictures

External Since: Sep 28, 2003 Posts: 11

Some of the silent features I've seen over the years are pretty long and
I often wonder if intermissions were planned. Most of the releases on
video do not indicate that an intermission was present. How common were
intermissions during the silent era? And how would one know if one were
called for in a particular picture?
Thanks

External Since: Jul 15, 2003 Posts: 97

chaneyfan RemoveThis @aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote in message news:<20031004033435.02243.00000346 RemoveThis @mb-m01.aol.com>...
> >>>Most of the releases on
> video do not indicate that an intermission was present. How common were
> intermissions during the silent era? And how would one know if one were
> called for in a particular picture?
>
> You can tell the films that were intended to have Intermissions, as these are
> the ones that have an intertitle that says "Intermission" somewhere around the
> middle of the feature. One that springs to mind is WINGS, where many prints
> still have the original Intermission title.

If you can find the musical cue sheet, that will also sometimes have
an "intermission" indicated. Of course, different theaters might have
shown the same film with or without intermissions. BEAU GESTE has a
title about half way through that reads to me as though it's to re-set
the scene and mood after an intermission.

I can speak from experience that if you're doing a long movie -- like
THIEF OF BAGDAD or NAPOLEON -- the musicians either need a break, or
you need to have two musicians (or sets of musicians) taking turns, or
the music gets pretty tired-sounding by the end.

Rodney Sauer
www.mont-alto.com