A type of pipe organ built between 1911 and 1940 specifically for the accompaniment of silent films and the performance of popular music. In the USA the term ‘theater organ’ is preferred (for earlier types of organ used in theatres, see Theatre organ (i)). Many characteristics of the cinema organ can be traced to church organs built between 1895 and 1910 in the UK and USA by Robert Hope-Jones (1859–1914), a pioneer of the use of electricity in organs. These included the use of rapid electropneumatic action, remote consoles, numerous couplers and accessories and, in particular, unification. With this economical system, the effect of a 61-pipe rank of another octave was obtained by the addition of 12 pipes to a stop and appropriate electrical connections (see Extension organ and Organ, §VI, 4). ‘Double touch’ enabled the organist to play with a different stop arrangement when applying additional pressure to the keys. This permitted the playing of solo and accompaniment on the same manual, and other effects.
The pipes used in cinema organs tended to be built to large scales and placed under high wind pressures. The Tibia Clausa, a stopped wood pipe of hooting flute-like tone originated by Hope-Jones, eventually became the most characteristic tone of the cinema organ. Other favoured stops included those that imitated orchestral instruments. Cinema organs can be differentiated from those of traditional design by the use of a strongly fluctuating wind supply which caused the pipes to speak with an exaggerated vibrato. The powerful pipework, usually hidden behind decorative grilles, was enclosed in Swell boxes which modified both the quantity and quality of tone. Cinema organs were provided with numerous percussion stops such as drums, cymbals and xylophones, as well as such various sound effects (‘traps’) as bird chirping, police sirens, train whistles, ocean waves and crashing sounds. These stops probably delighted audiences more than any others in the instrument.
Cinema organ consoles were designed with regard to natural arm movements and ease of use. Colour-coded stop control tabs were arranged in an arc above the manuals in what became known as the ‘horseshoe’ console (see illustration). The elaborate consoles, themselves, entertained audiences by dramatically rising from the orchestra pit to a thundering fanfare and brilliant illumination.
The prototype of the cinema organ was built under the direction of Hope-Jones at the Wurlitzer firm of North Tonawanda, New York, in 1910. These ‘Unit Orchestras’ were intended to replace the small instrumental groups serving cinemas and other places of entertainment. The use of a single performer not only reduced labour costs, but proved to be more effective when accompaniment for films had to be improvised. Wurlitzer eventually dominated the manufacture of cinema organs, producing twice as many as its American rivals – the firms of Robert Morton, Barton, Kimball and Möller. Indeed, the term ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ became synonymous with the instrument. The industry began a precipitous decline in 1927 with the advent of sound motion pictures. The economic austerities of the 1930s not only curtailed the manufacturing of new instruments, but led to the abandonment of existing organs.
In Britain, however, most of the organists were retained, at first in case the ‘talkies’ broke down (which they frequently did), but later because theatre owners discovered that ten or 15 minutes of organ playing, with the organist spotlit at the top of the lift, was a welcome contrast to the mechanically reproduced film music. Theatre organ music attained its greatest popularity in Britain through the medium of radio; about 1936 the BBC installed its own four-manual Compton organ, which was as popular as any other radio entertainment. Ultimately, however, the genre foundered in the wake of television in the 1950s and 60s. As cinemas began to be pulled down or rebuilt and the organs were in danger of destruction, societies were formed in the USA and Britain to reinstall instruments in auditoria, restaurants and homes. It is estimated that 7000 cinema organs were built in the USA between 1911 and 1929, accounting for a quarter of total pipe organ production. Notable extant cinema organ locations include the Radio City Music Hall in New York, the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California.
R. Hope-Jones: Recent Developments of Organ Building (North Tonawanda, NY, 1910)
R.J. Foort: The Cinema Organ (London, 1932, 2/1970)
R. Whitworth: The Cinema and Theatre Organ (London, 1932/R)
J. Courtnay: Theatre Organ World (London, 1946)
J.W. Landon: Behold the Mighty Wurlitzer: the History of the Theater Pipe Organ (Westport, CT, 1983)
D.L. Junchen: Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ (Pasadena, CA, 1985–95)
K. Schütz: Theater- und Kinoorgeln in Wien (Vienna, 1991)
D.H. Fox: Robert Hope-Jones (Richmond, VA, 1992)
DAVID H. FOX