Ninety-seven years ago, on Nov. 15, 1929, a movie called Ed’s Coed opened at the McDonald Theatre in downtown Eugene. Back then, it still played movies, and it was the biggest, most luxurious theater in town. Tickets were $1.25, which is worth about $24.34 today, and that got you into the movie. Before the film was a live cabaret set, music, dance numbers and a few words from the University of Oregon president, Eugene’s mayor and Oregon’s governor. The movie was silent, and UO music professor Brian McWhorter says there likely would have been an orchestra there to play the score to the sold-out crowd.
Almost a century later, on June 3, Ed’s Coed is playing again, this time in Straub Hall room 156, the largest, most luxurious (if you could call it that) lecture hall at the UO.
This showing caps off the Filmlandia screening series, organized by the Cinema Studies Department, which highlights less-known films made in or related to Oregon. Unlike 1929, admission is free and open to the public, and the show will not include a cabaret, dance numbers or any words from the university president or elected officials. (Unless, of course, the impulse strikes them and they jump on stage at the last moment.) Like 1929, however, this showing will have a live orchestra to play the score.
“These are some monster fucking musicians,” says McWhorter, who is music director of Orchestra Next in addition to his work at the UO. He composed and assembled the existing score in 2012. The same musicians who played on that 2012 score will be back to play it live again at the June 3 show — notably Kyle Sanna, on banjo, who recently played Carnegie Hall, and Michael Ward-Bergeman, on accordion, who plays for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.
Joining them are Lisa McWhorter on violin, Tyler Abbott on bass and Aaron Trant on drums. Miki Sasaki, associate professor of trumpet at UO, is the only new musician and replaces McWhorter, who played cornet in the original composition.
But why is there so much fanfare for a dinky little silent film from almost 100 years ago? Ed’s Coed was made by UO students on and around campus in the spring of 1929. According to Michael Aronson, head of UO Cinema Studies, it is likely the first ever feature-length film made by college students.
“Sometimes I make my current students feel guilty by saying, ‘Look, what are you doing?’” Aronson says with a chuckle. “These students, while they’re taking classes, produced a commercial feature film.”
Ed’s Coed is a romcom that opens on Ed Williams, a young lumber mill owner, who is convinced by his cousin, Buddy, to go to college at the UO, where he meets a girl named Joanne and must climb the social ladder to get her.
“It’s a classic fish-out-of-water story,” Aronson says. At the university, Ed is constantly pranked by the older students and must navigate the university traditions, lest he be paddled on the steps of Johnson Hall with the rest of the offending freshmen.
The film was largely shot outdoors with the help of professional cameraman James McBride, whose experience working with such directors as Cecil B. DeMille helped the film achieve its commercial Hollywood look — impressive for amateur students, especially so as they were working with early film technology.
“One of the things that amazes me is that it seems both far away and yet right there,” Aronson says. “It gives you a perspective about the past that I think brings it closer.” It is a time capsule of what campus, Eugene and college life looked like in the 1920s. For one thing, the now nasty Millrace near the Gamma Phi Beta sorority house was a popular place to take a girl on a romantic canoe date.
McWhorter’s score is meant to add to that transport back in time. The bulk of it is assembled from archival contemporary sheet music, stored in the UO Libraries Special Collections, and includes many Oregon folk songs, as well as a few jazz numbers by King Oliver.
McWhorter’s compositions fill the gaps. “When we do shows, the best case for me is that people are like, ‘That was an amazing film. Oh my god, was there actually music?’” McWhorter says. “In other words, it’s kind of affirming and supportive, but not crowding or belligerent. I love that tension, the challenge is interesting to me.”
The Filmlandia series that this screening caps off was a “labor of love,” says Colin Williamson, assistant professor of Cinema Studies at UO. “We didn’t know what to expect when we put this program together,” Williamson says. “Our biggest goal, in addition to highlighting film history here in Oregon, has been to build community on campus and in Eugene, to get people back into a movie theater, to share space with strangers and to see things they maybe wouldn’t expect to see. In the post-COVID times, we really have to practice cinema-going to keep it alive.”
Filmlandia screens Ed’s Coed 7 pm Wednesday, June 3, in Straub Hall 156 at the UO. Free and open to the public. More information can be found at Calendar.uoregon.edu.
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