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Quite early in the evolution of silent film presentation came the development of a whole new medium of musical accompaniment - the
introduction of the pipe organ into film theatres. No one knows for sure when or where this first occurred, but surely one of the first proponents of the organ for film theaters was Thomas L. Talley of Los Angeles.
In 1905 Talley built a theatre in Los Angeles specifically for film presentation. Orchestras were expensive. You had to pay a number of musicians to perform. A piano did not provide the right aura of quality
that he wanted. Thus, he decided upon a pipe organ. Unfortunately the organ had always been identified with sacred and "high-brow" classical music. Film patrons wanted entertainment. Talley would not
be dissuaded, however and a Murray M. Harris pipe organ was installed and a classically trained organist was hired to play it. It turned out to be a huge success.
A single organist, with a specially
designed instrument, could do many things the orchestra could not. He could play music from memory, making smooth transitions from one piece to another. He could time his playing and the use of special effects to
fit the actual movement taking place on the screen. Above all, he could improvise musical accompaniments using fragments of popular,
classical and semi classical themes, incorporating the organ's special voices and sound effects.
In a very real sense, the organ changed the movies and the movies changed the organ. Use of the organ provided
a much more realistic accompaniment to the action on the silent screen. This was particularly true because of the sound effects played from the organ such as door bells, steamboat whistles, railroad bells, sirens,
bird calls, auto horns, wood blocks, drums, and cymbals. Marimbas, xylophones, all kinds of chimes and bells, and grand pianos were attached and could be played from the console at the flick of a stop tablet (an
electrical switch). Further, the organ helped create a
certain atmosphere of luxury and culture, thus helping to attract an audience of higher calibre . At the same time, the movies themselves improved remarkably in a technical and artistic sense. Theatres changed from storefronts to movie palaces and cathedrals of the film. This in turn changed the organ itself. The first organs in theatres were usually built by church-organ builders. They were called straight organs because they were best equipped to play classical and sacred music.
The theatre organ was the result of the achievements and inventions of many persons. Chief among them was Robert Hope-Jones. Hope-Jones did not set out to build an organ specifically to accompany silent
pictures. His inventions were designed, rather, to produce an orchestral organ capable of reproducing many of the sounds of an orchestra. Among these many innovations were the invention of the diaphone, large
scale use of rank unification, suitable bass and the use of high wind pressures to produce the orchestral voices he so desired. Many of his major inventions predate 1907, several years before it became a
widespread practice to install organs in motion picture theatres.
Hope-Jones built one of the first reliable electro-pneumatic actions for the pipe organ. An electromagnet was placed at the bottom of each
pipe, which opened the valve to admit air to sound the note when a key was depressed at the console. This meant the organ console, the portion of the organ that houses the keyboards, could be placed anywhere,
connected to the pipes only by a cable of electric wires. Formerly, the console had to be directly attached to the pipes themselves. Hope-Jones perfected this idea in building an organ for a church in England in
1886. He was born in England and migrated to the United States early in the 1900s. He started his own organ company in the US but through poor business sense eventually lost the business. The Rudolph Wurlitzer
Company of North Tonawanda, New York bought from the Hope-Jones Organ Company receiver all the assets which included machinery and tools, fixtures, furniture, supplies and patents.
Developments by
Hope-Jones and others made possible very rapid changes of organ volume from a whisper to a thundering crescendo. The demands of silent picture accompaniment resulted in the addition of nontonal percussions and sound
effects such as sirens, horses' hoofs, steamboat whistles, and the like, but the basic design of the unit organ came well before its use in theatres. Organ pipes were installed in one or two chambers or rooms
usually located at either side of the theatre proscenium. Often the console was located on an elevator to permit it to be raised into view when needed. It could also sink from sight, eliminating audience
distraction during silent film accompaniment.
Wurlitzer marketed a theatre organ known as the "unit orchestra," because it was designed to imitate
sounds produced by an orchestra. Wurlitzer made expert use of advertising. Just as almost every refrigerator in the 1920s became known as a “Frigidaire”, so every theatre organ became known as a "Mighty Wurlitzer." There were many well-known makes such as Robert Morton, Kimball, Marr and Colton, Kilgen, Barton, Moller, Page, and others, but the Mighty Wurlitzer became the "Frigidare" of the theatre organ world.
Anyone who aspired to become a theatre organist could take instruction in one of the special schools in the larger cities such as schools run by Emil Velazco or Lew White in New York, Del Castillo in Boston,
or Bill Knauss' school in Chicago. If this was not feasible, he could buy a variety of do-it-yourself books and learn at home. Among those available were: How to Play the Cinema Organ-A Practical Book by a Practical
Player, authored by a noted British organist, George Tootell; Musical Accompaniment of Moving Pictures by Edith Lang and George West, and Musical Presentation of Motion Pictures, by George W. Beynon. Each of
these books contained a wealth of practical advice.
As if this kind of instruction were not enough, other books featuring the use of special effects appeared. One such delightful volume was C. Roy Carter's
Theatre Organist's Secrets.' In his introduction, Carter set the theme of his book:
An audience will often be more favorably impressed by the organist who takes advantage of appropriate situations for putting
in some clever trick or effect than by one who might possibly be a better musician but lets these scenes pass unnoticed. Remarks like "Wasn't that a clever Banjo effect the organist played for that Negro
scene?" or "Wasn't that Rooster-crow imitation he put in a scream?" are much more frequent than "Didn't the organist play that Chopin Nocturne beautifully?"'
No wonder
"legitimate" organists turned up their noses at their counterpart in the cinema. Carter's book contains instructions and short musical passages which an organist could use to produce effects such as a
snore, laughter, a yell or scream, a kiss, a railroad train, an "aeroplane," thunder, a rooster crow, a pig grunt, a cat meow, a lion roar, and many others. Some organists were known for their development
and use of a particular effect. Nobody could imitate a barking dog quite as well as Lew White, chief organist of the Roxy Theatre, New York.
Gradually, the organ came to be featured for brief ten- to fifteen
minute solo periods in the larger, more luxurious theatres. Some of the organists themselves became show business "personalities" sharing billing on the theatre marquee with the stars of films and stage
shows. Entire full-length organ concerts were given in the theatres, a favorite time being Sunday noon when most theatres opened. Some organists were able to add to their popularity through the medium of phonograph
records and live radio broadcasts. Through these media, they became known to thousands who never heard them perform in person. Many persons came to the theatre just to hear the organist play, regardless of the other
features of the entertainment bill. Names such as Jesse Crawford-"The Poet of the Organ," Lew White, Fred Feibel, Milton Charles, Ann Leaf-"The Mighty Mite of the Mighty Wurlitzer," Don Miller,
Milton Slosser and many others became known widely to many radio and theatre audiences.
The silent movie era eventually came to an end. The birth of "talkies," plus the catastrophic stock market
crash, spelled the beginning of the demise of the theatre organ in the United States. With a few notable exceptions, organs fell silent around the country by the mid thirties.
In the 1950s, the theatre organ experienced a surprising and unexpected comeback. The coming of high fidelity made it the perfect instrument for demonstrating
what wide-range sound equipment could do. Thus, rediscovered, the theatre organ became the object of attention by groups of enthusiasts who began printing and circulating newsletters, salvaging organs from theatres
and installing them in their own homes, or rebuilding them in their old locations. Silent film series with pipe organ accompaniment became popular, and theatre organ concerts here and there across the country drew
enthusiastic crowds. Pizza parlors equipped with theatre pipe organs became all the rage. People of every age bracket seemed interested, not just those who recalled the silent picture era. Young, well trained,
serious musicians began to take a second look at the theatre organ as a unique musical instrument.
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ples of two of the more famous theatre organ consoles appear on this page. On the right is a
copy of 
the NY Paramount Wurlitzer console. The original console was destroyed
in a fire. The Paramount organ is now located in Wichita, KS at the Century II Auditorium. On the left is a picture of the Chicago Stadium Barton Console. The largest Theatre
console ever built. In contrast, the console survived a fire where the rest of the organ was destroyed. The console now controls a Barton organ at the Maloof residence in Las Vegas, NV