CLIQUES : VITAL ORGANS

Theater organs once graced cinemas across the nation, punctuating the celluloid efforts of the pre-Talkies era. Most of these mighty musical dinosaurs are gone now, and only a handful survive in Southern California.

But one L.A. theater still has its original organ: Downtown’s 69-year-old Orpheum Theatre, one of the last of the city’s extravagant movie palaces. Its feisty old Wurlitzer, with its broad row of pedals, three tiers of keys and two rooms full of pipes, lives on through the efforts of the Los Angeles Theater Organ Society. For the past 34 years, the society, which also tends organs at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Pasadena City College and Wilshire Ebell Theater has been preserving, maintaining and spreading the word about these artifacts.

Every Saturday morning, a volunteer crew gathers at the Orpheum to tend the organ and fill the cavernous hall with fluid, whirling versions of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Night and Day” and the like.

Clifford Schwander, 86, is in charge of the instrument’s upkeep, but the job of coaxing the melodies out of the Wurlitzer falls to others. “We had about eight organists, but bit by bit they died off, moved away or lost interest, so we have about four now,” says Schwander. Playing today is the Rev. Phillip McKinley, 63. “My repertoire is mostly show tunes, stuff from the ‘40s and ‘50s,” says the Alhambra-based minister.

The last strains of “Body and Soul” have barely faded when the matinee crowd filters in. But the touch of the old Wurlitzer still beckons and McKinley and the others will hang out, watch the movie and play for the crowd during the afternoon intermissions. “Something about these old organs,” McKinley says. “I just love ‘em.”