We all know that the theremin was used in sci-fi movies of the Fifties: Rocketship X-M, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Thing. But I think I might have just found the earliest use of a theremin in a sci-fi film.
I recently bought a copy of a French film, End of the World (1931), in which a messianic scientist discovers a comet headed straight for the Earth. In the scenes near the end in which the dissolute rich party like there’s no tomorrow (heh heh), there’s a short bit in which there’s a musician type in the foreground. His right hand is held about waist level and he’s wiggling it up and down; and the soundtrack gets, well, a bit theremin-y at that point.
I thought, surely that couldn’t be a guy playing a theremin, could it? But Wikipedia says that the theremin was invented in 1920, at which point Theremin went on a lengthy concert tour of Europe. And the picture of him in Wikipedia even looks a bit like the guy in the movie–could it be him, playing his own instrument, in End of the World? :eek:
Arthur Honegger is one of five names listed in the Music credits for “End Of The World”; The Wikipeedonya says he invented his own electronic instrument, which is related to (and looks like) a theremin, in 1928.
Comparing grainy old photos, I’d say he somewhat resembles Leon Theremin.
*“…As it turns out, La fin du monde was the film debut for an electronic musical instrument called a Martenot. It is featured in the foreground of the first big party scene.”
*
I think you’re wrong there.
In the 1993 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey they interview Brian Wilson at length. He was fascinated by the Theremin, and built his own from plans in a magazine. Wilson says he used a Theremin in Good Vibrations, and it certainly sounds like one.
Why do you think it wasn’t used? What do you suppose is making those smoothly varying tones in Good Vibrations?
One other interesting thin g in that film is the clip from the Jerry Lewis film The Delicate Delinquent (his first post-Dean Martin solo film, with Darren McGavin taking the Martin role). I’d seen the film eons ago, but completely forgot that there’s a scene with Lewis playing the Theremin.
You are correct. It is Maurice Martinot’s invention. I was about to come back and confess to my mistake.
After my last post, I looked a little further into the subject and was “surprised” to learn that Honegger was one of several composers who wrote for the Martinot, but did not invent it.
Having searched through last night’s browser history, I can’t find the reference that I misread so badly; I hope it was poorly written. Damn this is embarrassing.
That link doesn’t say it wasn’t a theramin; it says that it was a kind of theramin. It’s like saying that an instrument isn’t a tuba, it’s a sousaphone.
Wilson did say it was a theremin, but I can’t vouch for his memory. According to Wikipedia, it was indeed Tanner’s instrument, which Wiki calls an “electrotheremin”. When is an electrotheremin not a theremin? I don’t know the technical details, but it sounds as if it could be a simply matter of how you play it, not how itproduces tones (you don’t touch a classic theremin to play it).
The Wiki article has this to say about concert tours:
Does the Youtube footage show a theremin, and electrotheremin, or a theremin with a ribbon controller?
