Moviegoers
attending the Chestnut Hill Film Group’s inaugural screening of the season
this Tuesday evening were delighted by the artful musical accompaniment of
veteran keyboardist Don Kinnear. Kinnear improvised as he watched, for the
first time, two silent short films chosen by Jay Schwartz (founder of the Secret
Cinema) and employed the operatic style of playing and interweaving themes
assigned to different characters for the silent main feature he had seen before,
W.C. Fields’ 1926 “It’s the Old Army Game.” With his electronic keyboard and a
laptop loaded with a digital version of the Wurlitzer organ of the Virginia
Theater in Champaign, Illinois  he reproduced
the music, sounds and special effects (“toy counter”) the original audiences  in the 1920s may have experienced. Watch video interview here.