Instrumental for movie enjoyment

IN the age of music-making computer programs such as Pro Tools and Garage Band, not many people are aware that the prototype for the modern synthesizer came in the form of the theater organ.

Originally outfitted with sounds including car horns, doorbells and whistles, these instruments were an integral part of the moviegoer’s experience between 1915 and 1928. With the advent of talkies, however, many of the organs began to languish in warehouses and abandoned movie theaters, destined for dismantlement, while others were donated to the war effort because of the metal piping in them.

But 50 years ago, the American Theatre Organ Society began with the intent to house and refurbish the homeless instruments. It first met at the home of Richard and Helen Simonton in Toluca Lake and now has 78 chapters, including four international outposts. The L.A. chapter has acquired three of the instruments and oversees the maintenance of two others. Each organ can cost hundreds of thousands to maintain, but the payoff is worth it, members say.

“In preserving the instruments,” says Los Angeles Theatre Organ Society President Dorsey Caldwell, “we can interest the younger generation and encourage them to become organists, so the sounds of the instrument once known to set the mood for a motion picture can continue to be experienced firsthand.”

Now the organization is inviting the public to experience theater organ music as well. The society is presenting a screening of the 1921 Rudolph Valentino classic “The Sheik” on Saturday in Pasadena City College’s Sexson Auditorium. Bob Salisbury, former organist at the Catalina Island Casino Theater, will be providing accompaniment on the theater’s Wurlitzer, a composite of other organs completed in 1991.

But if Salisbury’s any good, you’re bound to ignore him. As Caldwell claims, “The best theater organists are those who accompany the film so well, you don’t even notice they’re there.”

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-- Tanja Laden

“The Sheik,” 8 p.m. Saturday, Pasadena City College, Sexson Auditorium, 1720 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. $12 to $15. (888) LATOS-22, www.latos.org