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When Bill Murray learns to play the piano in Ground Hog Day.

There was a Chinese-made piano movie called "The Secret," released last year. Dialogue in Mandarin (so you might not understand it any better than I could), but the music crosses all language barriers. Have a listen.

Piano Battle Scene from "The Secret."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cbSeZh6apVk

If you want a translation

The Secret Piano Battle (eng sub)

Released in January 2007, White Noise Two filmed here in Vancouver B.C. has one of the best piano stunt scenes I have ever been involved in helping to set up.

Cheers…..

Michelle Pfiefer making whoopie on the piano!
Michelle\'s piano debut

Most of the biggies have been mentioned. But how about towards the end of It's A Wonderful Life, when George comes home after having gone begging to Mr. Potter, and the kids are practicing Hark the Herald Angels Sing and he yells at them to stop, and everyone freezes, mortified. A small moment, but what a great encapsulation of how low a man can sink.

Chico was an artist. Here he is, "playing one of my own compositions, by Victor Herbert" in this excerpt from Animal Crackers. I love it so much I stole the name of his character for my PW Forum screen name. A more perfect combination of execrable music and comic presentation is hard to imagine. It appears at about the 3:30 mark of this clip. Watch it and weep.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=31oKQNEzjC4&feature=related#

That clip was worth watching for the last minute (starting at about 9:30) when the camera goes INSIDE the piano and shows the action going and hammers hitting the strings while it's being played. I still have no idea how they were able to do that!

I don't recall much playing in it, but I liked The Piano with Holly Hunter, just because it was such a weird and twisted story, and the beautiful square grand...

Five Easy Pieces, where Jack Nicholson plays the upright on the back of a truck.

Excellent film.
I love the scene where he's in the cafe and K545 is playing. It got me in to it big time! I've never heard any other recording played so fast.

I'll have to check all these out. I love piano movies.

Seems the Legend of 1900 was mentioned earlier, but this is my favorite piano movie scene from that.

Clip 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tislJu9Dls

Clip 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tislJu9Dls

If you have about 15, check it out and enjoy.

Joel

I would have to go with Rhapsody Rabbit - Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes as my all time favorite.

The Scene in "Shine" where he is in the club and they haggle him as he sits at the piano to "show em what you got Liberace" and he procedes to play the Flight of the Bumble Bee on that POS upright. I have used this scene to inspire students about practicing scales and Hammond studies - works for about 15 minutes:)

B

Emanuel Ravelli: I watched the Marx Brothers selection, and it was a lot of fun. I don't agree that the music was execrable, though--I love the song "Silver Threads Among the Gold," which is the one piece he plays seriously in this clip. If I could choose a talent, it would be to play piano-bar music just like that.

Not the greatest of all time but it always makes me laugh when the Andrew Erskine character in The Competition berates someone about the tempo and reminds them that the score says "Allegro ma non friggin' troppo."

What about "A Song To Remember" (1945).
With Cornell wilde Playing Frederic Chopin and Stephen Beckassy playing Franz Liszt.
They played a Piece holding, hands. So one played the bottom Part, with his LH, whilst the other played the top Part with his RH.
I cannot remember which way round they were.

jeffoldbean.

Hi all,

This one is not specifically a piano movie,... but it's a must see movie!! The King of Kong!

It's about a guy, Steve Wiebe, who lost his job and decided to dedicate his time to beat the world record in Donkey Kong

It's amazing to see the hand and eye coordination that these hardcore arcade gamers have!!

The relationship to piano is that Steve also plays the piano and composes music for the piano,... he mentioned that he always keep a notepad on the nightstand because sometimes he'll hear music when he's in bed and he uses a shorthand method to jot it down so he can remember it the next morning and work on it,...

Maybe playing the piano in a way contributes to building the amazing stamina as well as hand and eye coordination he has to be able to stay focused and play games for hours non stop.

Regards,

Robert

p.s. OT - An Iowa trivia,... I bet not many people know that the official world record keeper for all arcade and computer games is based in Iowa!

Here you go, great scene!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aDnNJ6aEWc&feature=related

Another one.

Autumn Sonata by Ingmar Bergman. Totally depressing of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuGGamaGX4&feature=related

Actually Alex,
I spelled Cornel With 2 ls, istead of the one.
Were they playing on Bluthners desguised as Pleyels?

jeffoldbean.

Lady playing the first aria of the Goldberg Variations in The English Patient.