Tweet Actors playing instruments onscreen

The Betty Compson and Joan Crawford threads made me wonder about other actors seen playing music onscreen, and who is really doing it.

I do NOT mean scenes where an actor is definitely miming to the music or using a cutaway for hand shots. I mean where the actor (or actress) knows how to play.

Example: In Ed Wynn's THE CHIEF he plays Brahms Lullaby and Wynn is definitely playing the piano live. (Oddly enough an incidental piano scene earlier is mimed and very obviously)

From the silent era Ernest Torrence plays the piano in DESERT NIGHTS and he definitely is playing with great assurance.

Larry Fine was, of course, quite adept at the violin and you see him on-screen frequently with it.

Dick Powell supposedly could play every instrument in his band, but I don't know if he ever shows it off on-screen. Likewise, Fred MacMurray got his start with dance orchestras and played a number of instruments, and showed off on-screen a few times as I recall.

Chico Marx

Larry Fine was, of course, quite adept at the violin and you see him on-screen frequently with it.

Dick Powell supposedly could play every instrument in his band, but I don't know if he ever shows it off on-screen. Likewise, Fred MacMurray got his start with dance orchestras and played a number of instruments, and showed off on-screen a few times as I recall.

Jack Oakie played the piano a bit in a few early Paramounts. Also, Charley Chase with his banjo in a few Roach shorts. Also, too, Groucho and his guitar in Horse Feathers. I don't know if they were dubbed, but each looked as though they were playing although I didn't pay close attention (the quality of the Oakie Paramounts didn't allow close observation).

Jack Benny had MacMurray and Powell (also Dan Dailey, Tony Martin and Kirk Douglas) on one of his shows for a "jam session". If any was a virtuoso, they made sure not to show it.

Mary Astor at the piano.

Buster Keaton at the ukelele.

Ann Harding at the piano in Paris Bound?

If Mary Astor wasn't actually playing piano in The Great Lie it was a great imitation.

Chase played multiple instruments in his films, and it's him playing them

From the silent era Ernest Torrence plays the piano in DESERT NIGHTS and he definitely is playing with great assurance.

Torrence plays the piano in I COVER THE WATERFRONT (1933) as well, in a full shot with his hands visible on the keyboard, and he doesn't seem to be faking.

Ramon Novarro also plays piano in the opening of THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE (1934).

Chico.

Harpo.

Groucho in GO WEST.

Oscar Levant in HUMORESQUE.

Sterling Holloway plays some saxophone in DOWN TO THEIR LAST YACHT, though mostly for comedy.

Phil Silvers was a clarinettist, though seldom in the movies.

William Demarest played the cello in THE JOLSON STORY

On a comic note- Mischa Auer plays the violin badly (on purpose) in a film- which is a good joke because his uncle was a concert virtuoso.

Groucho also in Monkey Business and Horse Feathers.

Oliver Hardy on the piano in Beau Hunks.

W. C. Fields on zither (played with mittens on) in The Fatal Glass of Beer.

Chaplin played violin in The Vagabond and Limelight, but I'm not too certain about the authenticity of his playing in the latter? ... Also on piano in The Great Dictator.

If I remember correctly, Fred MacMurray in Murder He Says briefly plays the sax to decode the mystery melody ("Honors flysis").

A great Ukulele Ike/Buster Keaton combo from Doughboys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu3p6PBix64

If I remember correctly, Fred MacMurray in Murder He Says briefly plays the sax to decode the mystery melody ("Honors flysis").
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I recall them playing a reed organ in that (imitating Bob Hope's pipe organ in Ghost Breakers) but no sax. I know MacMurray played sax (pretty poorly) on TV. He plays concertina in THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS but I think that's faked, though he does his own singing.

Of course Rudy Vallee plays saxophone in a few pictures- but at that point he wasn't an actor who played he was a musician who acted. You also find cases like Jimmy Durante who bangs on a piano throughout his career.

Vivian Vance played piano on I Love Lucy.

Jimmy Stewart played piano in Anatomy of a Murder.

I recall them playing a reed organ in that (imitating Bob Hope's pipe organ in Ghost Breakers) but no sax.

OK, now I remember: Studying the notes, Fred MacMurray tells Helen Walker (probably as an in-joke): "I used to play saxophone."

Too bad Joe Keaton never allowed his family act to be filmed. In addition to little Buster, we might have had footage of his sax-playing mother Myra:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/tomasutpen/album5/the-three-keatons.jpg

Bessie Love played the uke in The Broadway Melody.

Lou Costello drums in IT AIN'T HAY and COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN.

Mickey Rooney played drums in real life and in the movie The Strip.



He also played piano and maybe even more instruments.

Al Jolson "plays" the piano in several films beginning with that famous "Blue Skies" scene in THE JAZZ SINGER. He also posed at the keyboard seemingly in mid-song on a number of occasions including one of the last photos taken of him three days before his death. Not only couldn't he play the piano, Al couldn't even read music!

Bessie Love played the uke in The Broadway Melody.

And THEY LEARNED ABOUT WOMEN (1930).

Chase played multiple instruments in his films, and it's him playing them

Well, all except the jail bars in High C's.

I think Rooney also played drums in Operation Mad Ball.

It's not from a movie, but a newsdealer in my neighborhood used to have a framed picture of W. C. Fields playing drums hanging behind the counter. I was staggered when I saw it for the first time -- Fields is seated behind a standard drum kit with bass and snare drums and cymbals, he is holding the sticks correctly, and seems to be having a whale of a good time.

I remarked to the dealer that I didn't know that Fields could play drums, and he replied, "Neither did my father -- that's why he snapped that picture."

If we talk about the worst fake playing (when a actor do not play but the character is suposed to) The Picture of Dorian Gray have the worst fake playing ever in a serious film, as in a scene Dorian playing looks like he is moving a cranck, even considering that we no dot see his hands, but just parts of his arm.

There is a 80's film (sorry to scape from Nitrate thematic) called The Competition, and looks like they trained Richard Dreyfus and Amy Irving to play a classing complex music slow, and it was shot with low frame speed, and projected with normal frame speed.
Not sure if some of the actors had some formation or skills on piano.

Bob Burns played the bazooka.

If we talk about the worst fake playing (when a actor do not play but the character is suposed to) The Picture of Dorian Gray have the worst fake playing ever in a serious film, as in a scene Dorian playing looks like he is moving a cranck, even considering that we no dot see his hands, but just parts of his arm.

There is a 80's film (sorry to scape from Nitrate thematic) called The Competition, and looks like they trained Richard Dreyfus and Amy Irving to play a classing complex music slow, and it was shot with low frame speed, and projected with normal frame speed.
Not sure if some of the actors had some formation or skills on piano.

Alan Alda took intensive training to play a few minutes of piano in THE MEPHISTO WALTZ. He said that a few months after shooting he tried to play it again and couldn't do it.

Fred Astaire plays piano and drums in Follow the Fleet

Buddy Rogers, I've seen some picture, can't remember the title, where he makes his way through the orchestra playing a bit of just about every different instrument.

I don't know if Mickey Rooney also plays the banjo, but he had me completely fooled in Babes on Broadway. Only problem, the playing was *incredible* and I found it hard to believe that Rooney was *that* good. Well, it turned out he wasn't. The banjo solo was actually played by Eddie Peabody.

Here's the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZuWAW-EaRo

The finale of the movie is terrific, not just the banjo solo. Busby Berkely and Judy, Mickey and the gang in black face. Good songs, extravagant sets, dozens of dancers, crazy camera shots. They surely don't make 'em like they used to.

I know it's a silent, but Buster Keaton seemed to be quite musically proficient in The Playhouse.
I also remember hearing on the commentary track of the Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that James Mason's organ playing fooled veteran organ instructers into thinking that Mason really was an organist.

I know it's a silent, but Buster Keaton seemed to be quite musically proficient in The Playhouse.
I also remember hearing on the commentary track of the Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that James Mason's organ playing fooled veteran organ instructers into thinking that Mason really was an organist.

It this clip is anything to go by those veteran organ instructors had been thoroughly liquored up before viewing the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq8k8Rsd9oY

As an organ player myself I can tell you that who ever designed those display pipes had no more knowledge of organs than I have of nuclear power plants. The entire notion of a pipe organ on the Nautilus is impossible- a reed organ would be very plausible, but we're talking Disney here.