Seventh Heaven (27)

[moviepas]

Talking running times could well be just an even approximation(120m). The European running time could well be the PAL speed up situation which would drag it down to 114 or 110mins. Like listing a US TV film at 120min when in fact it might really be 72mins when the ads are taken out of the running time, a common practice to list time of the slot with ads not the actual running time of the film.

[Frame Rate]

Chuck W,

Don't worry, the Movie-Tone score is cleaned up nicely on the Murnau-Borzage set. Although, there are a few short adjusted edits. I assume that it sounds the same on the BFI DVD's. I happen to love the Movie-tone score. I think it's one of the best vintage tracks to any Silent film. The only other score that I know of is the William Perry Piano one from the very early 70's. Not one of his better efforts by the way. And I generally think highly of Bill's work.

I happened to run across this old thread from a decade ago while searching today for an answer to a question that I first pondered way back when the boxed-set Borzages first came out:

"Why did Paul Killiam (in packaging his "Silent Years" TV series) commission Bill Perry to record an original piano score for SEVENTH HEAVEN when the film already had an existing Movietone track, comparable to the one Paul did use for his prints of STREET ANGEL?"

Although Gagman (quoted above) was less impressed, to me Perry's SEVENTH HEAVEN score is among his most powerful, melodic and memorable, perfectly enhancing Borzage's ultra-emotive emotive imagery.

I searched for years to acquire a copy of the film including Perry's score and was both surprised and disappointed to discover that when a substantial group of the Killiam silents were acquired by Ms. Birnhack & Co. and sub given a VHS release by Critics' Choice Video the Perry track had been

[Frame Rate]

Don't worry, the Movie-Tone score is cleaned up nicely on the Murnau-Borzage set. Although, there are a few short adjusted edits. I assume that it sounds the same on the BFI DVD's. I happen to love the Movie-tone score. I think it's one of the best vintage tracks to any Silent film. The only other score that I know of is the William Perry Piano one from the very early 70's. Not one of his better efforts by the way. And I generally think highly of Bill's work.

I happened to run across this old thread from over a decade ago while searching today for the answers to some questions that I first pondered way back when the deluxe boxed-set Borzages first came out:

"Why did Paul Killiam (in packaging his "Silent Years" TV series) commission Bill Perry to record an original piano score for SEVENTH HEAVEN when the film already had an existing Movietone track, comparable to the one Paul did use for his prints of STREET ANGEL?" "Could it have been that the track was only found recently and the sole-surviving (safety-film) copy Ms. Gaynor originally donated to MOMA was mute?"

Although Gagman (quoted above) was less impressed, to me Perry's SEVENTH HEAVEN score is among his most powerful, melodic and memorable, perfectly enhancing Borzage's ultra-emotive imagery.

I searched for years to acquire a copy of the film including Perry's score and was both puzzled and disappointed to discover that when a substantial group of the Killiam silents were sub-licensed for VHS release by Critics' Choice Video -- the Perry track for SH was missing! Instead, the cassette had the Movietone score, strongly suggesting that Paul did have source material for it all along and had nevertheless chosen to replace it with Perry's performance.

Nevertheless, investing the extra cash for a custom-piano score, when a perfectly serviceable Movietone track was already available, seems unlikely in light of the modest production budget Paul was working with for the series, as exemplified by the spartan filming of the Welles and Gish intros -- but there might be a significant motivation factor in this instance of extra expenditure.

Since Perry likely first came to Paul's attention via the pianist's tenure as regular accompanist at MOMA (where he had already complied, composed and performed full scores for many silent classics in the museum's permanent collection) perhaps Killiam had previously attended a SH screening with Perry at the keyboard and was so moved by the experience that Paul insisted it be re-created for the TV screening and subsequent non-theatrical distribution.

Eventually I managed to land a Perry-scored video of SH by way of a collector's off-cable recording (commercials clumsily deleted) from a 1980s telecast on the old Arts & Entertainment channel.

While no authorized DVD release of SEVENTH HEAVEN has, to my knowledge, ever included Perry's score, a transfer of one of the old 16mm syndication prints (minus the Killiam-tinting, hampered by a slight "wow-ing" in the projection speed and frequently interrupted with narrated translations in Spanish!) is currently available on YouTube. It certainly doesn't do the music justice, but at least there are no abrupt cuts for commercials removal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SetCZUldgo

[Rodney]

This is unrelated to the current discussion, but I had a recent discovery regarding Seventh Heaven.

The title track, "Diane," by Erno Rapee, is tightly associated with the movie, and most commonly encountered as movie tie-in piano/vocal sheet music.

I was going through a collection of vintage orchestrations in a collection, and a piece titled "Valse Dramatique" by Erno Rapee, published by Belwin in 1925, had "Seventh Heaven" penciled in under the title. Sure enough, it's "Diane," but without its title and lyrics, and some differences in the melody of the verse.

So, Rapee took a piece from his back catalog, changed the verse to put it in a more singable range than the original violin part, and reissued it as "Diane."

During my recent visit with Dan Goldmark in Cleveland, we found that JS Zamecnik did the same with The Wedding March. His song "Paradise," released in conjunction with the film, is a reworking of a 1918 composition called "My Paradise," with the verse music completely replaced but the chorus melody the same.