Klarinet Archive - Posting 000386.txt from 2000/03

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Clarinet player in "Song of the Thin Man"
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 14:21:51 -0500

The 1947 MGM mystery movie, "Song of the Thin Man," sends Nick and Nora
Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy, with Nick, Jr. played by 11-year-old
Dean Stockwell) into the world of night club jazz and swing. The movie
features a lot of original music, composed by David Snell. Does anyone know
who plays the many clarinet solos on the soundtrack?

Two of the major characters are clarinetists, Clarence "Clinker" Krause
(played by Keenan Wynn) and Buddy Hollis (played by Don Taylor). It's
obvious that neither actor knows how to play the clarinet. Whoever does play
the clarinet on the soundtrack sounds first-rate to me. I'd like to credit
this clarinetist in a capsule review I'm writing for _Scarlet Street_.

Along with others on the _Scarlet Street_ staff, I'm in the middle of writing
another block of these short film noir retrospectives, for a continuing
_Scarlet Street_ project. I could use an encyclopedic source of data on
musicians in the movies, if anybody can suggest one. Many noir films use
jazz and swing musicians as characters. The old black-and-white movies often
fail to credit the real musicians. Tracking them down one by one in the
Library of Congress is prohibitively time-consuming for a 500-600 word
article. I need a source that allows a researcher to search from the movie
title (not from a musician's name). I've got Tony Thomas's _Music for the
Movies_, which covers only a selection of the major composers. I don't have
any large trove of information about the bands, orchestras and soloists. The
Internet Movie Database (http://us.imdb.com) sometimes uncovers this
information for old movies, but not consistently. Any other ideas?

Thanks--
Lelia

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