For those who weren’t around yet, there was a ragtime revival of sorts that began in 1970 and lasted about 10 years. Music publishers brought out the complete work of Scott Joplin and other composers of the era, and college dorm music rooms were alive with the sounds of students pounding this stuff out in their spare time. I was one of those students, and at one time had a repertoire of thirty or forty pieces under my belt.
Common wisdom has it that ragtime exploded on the scene around 1899 and faded into virtual oblivion from about 1950 on. Joplin’s publisher John Stark continued putting out scores by other writers, right up to the early 1920’s, but by then they were so passe as to go virtually unnoticed.
So the first time I watched the 1930 film The Public Enemy, with Cagney as a gangster, I was surprised to hear someone playing Maple Leaf Rag in the background during one scene. It was played slowly and deliberately, as by someone struggling to play it all the way through for the first time. This particular scene is supposed to be from the Cagney character’s youth, taking place in 1915. Still I was astonished that the producers of the film, in 1930, thought of using the Maple Leaf Rag which was published in 1899.
So I’m wondering if there are any similar occurrences of genuine ragtime in early sound films. Does anyone know of any? Please understand that Western saloon scenes with a piano player banging out Oh, Dem Golden Slippers or a Dixieland band doing When The Saints Go Marching In don’t count.