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[Update: Here’s a fun discovery. The Times published this photo to accompany a 1970 feature on cameraman Virgil Miller. According to the caption information, this is the crew filming “Let ‘er Buck” in Pendleton, Ore., in 1924. Please congratulate Mary Mallory, Rotter and Mike Hawks for identifying director "Big Ed" Sedgwick.] This is a particularly interesting shot. It looks like there’s a mystery keyboardist with a tiny piano or some sort of keyboard instrument. Mood music? |
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[Update: The fellow on the left is Virgil Miller.] Here’s our mystery cameramen…. [Update: This is Henry Cohen.] [Update: The fellow on the left is “Big Ed” Sedgwick.] … and mystery guys in chairs! |
ladailymirror.com 
The hand-cranked cameras tell us that the film being made was a silent. In the silent era, it was common to have a pianist, often a violinist or accordionist as well, to provide mood music to help the actors emote. As this still shows us, the practice even carried over to location shooting. Note the crowd in the background at the extreme left! When sound came in, the on-set musicians disappeared, and crowd control had to be implemented to keep the fans’ exclamations off the sound track.
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It’s THE SADDLE HAWK with director Edward Sedgwick sitting in front of the camera. One of the cameramen should be Virgil Miller.
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Great photo! There’s a still photographer in there, too, with what looks like an early single lens reflex. Probablywith a 4×5 inch negative. Love the boots on the two dudes sitting in front.
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Edward Sedgwick, Director
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The celeste piano player has an intense Harry Houdini look. The shot is probably from the teens, where the distance between the old west and the new era of motion pictures still overlaps.
Great great still! Please keep ’em coming. The Daily Mirror has a photo morgue unique because Los Angeles is where a certain industry grew from a scrappy early adolescence into the world shaping force it is today. Thank you for sharing it with all of us who love film, history, and a touch of mystery.
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It is Edward Sedgwick at MGM in the late 1920’s, that is all I can tell you.
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Let ‘Er Rip is another Universal like The Saddle Hawk. I couldn’t make out the last number on the slate, but I could see Gibson underneath it too. He starred in both these films.
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