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Silent Film Review
Duck Soup Cinema -- "The General"
3/74 Klais Pipe Organ
Overture Hall, Madison, Wisconsin
February 7, 2005
Review by Gary Hanson, as published in the March 2005 issue of The Bartola, journal of the Dairyland Theatre Organ Society. Reprinted with permission.
Monday evening, February 7, was a real happening in Madison. With nearly a sold-out house of 2,200 people, the size of the audience
was certainly a record-breaking event for the Duck Soup Silent Film series.
Because of the remodeling of the Barton-equipped Oscar Mayer Theatre, the series was moved into the spectacular Overture Hall.
It will be the only film shown in this season, until the reopening of the Oscar Mayer Theatre, to be renamed the Capitol Theatre.
Dairyland's own Jelani Eddington did the accompaniment of the film on the 4,000 pipe Klais organ in Overture Hall. To those
that say you cannot accompany a silent film on any organ other than a theatre organ, all of that theory was disproved with Jelani's
masterful scoring. In addition to acompanying the silent film, Jelani played an orchestral "mini concert" for twenty minutes before
the program started. A quote later from the newspaper: "Eddington's score was very good--I was humming it for hours afterwards."
Duck Soup Cinema is the longest running silent film series playing in the nation, starting in 1987. When the series began, the
average attendance was 500 to 700 people. Since 2000, the series has drawn on the average of 1,200 -- until the event was moved to
Overture Hall -- nearly every seat of the 2,400 seat auditorium was filled! It was an awesomem sight . . . . To have attended
this "one time only" event in Overture Hall was in hindsight, a very good thing. The lines of people buying tickets and filling the
lobby were just amazing.
The original 3/14 Barton organ next door has been mothballed while the theatre is undergoing extensive remodelling and renovations.
Opening in 1927 as the "Capitol Theatre," after the remodeling the theatre will again be named the "Capitol." Who said: "what goes
around, comes around?"
--Gary Hanson
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