Movie Page - Mississippi Gambler

Offstage ‘Mood Music’ Favored by Ty Power

(reprint from “The Mississippi Gambler” campaign booklet)

Offstage “mood music”, that old standby of silent screen actors, made a strong comeback during the filming of Universal-International’s Technicolor “The Mississippi Gambler”.

Instigator of the mood music renaissance was Ty Power, a musically minded gent with a portable sound system and a collection of some 3,000 records.

“They put a strong musical score into the finished picture,” Power points out. “Why shouldn’t an actor have the benefits of similar music while he’s actually making the picture?”

Following up this statement with action, Power usually started off his morning with a long-playing record of Ravel’s “Bolero”.

Between scenes in mid-morning Power put on a smattering of Noel Coward. “Tokay” from “Bittersweet”, for instance, is grand mood material for a light comedy scene, says the actor.

For drama, Power usually comes up with something heavy such as a portion of Wagner’s Ring cycle or the prologue to Pagliacchi. Lighter dramatic scenes call for a few minutes of Beethoven’s Fifth or Leoncavello’s Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rusticana.

For romantic scenes Ty is partial to the highly-moving music of Sibelius. But for unrequited love, he switches over to the Meditation theme from Coate’s London Suite.