Kathy, la reina del saloon
(Espectáculo "Los clásicos de Les Luthiers" en inglés)

Marcos Mundstock:

While living in Paris, the composer Raymond Drinkstein had been a piano player at the silent movies, working at the celebrated Vieux Royal, a favorite watering-hole of the intellectual avant-garde. (WHAT A DAME!). In those days, a tender teenager, named Henriette, used to sit next to Drinkstein on the narrow stool, closely chaperoned by her mother, Madame Leforquier. With Henriette at his side, Drinkstein pounded the piano to illustrate the movies, which were bereft of sound. Henriette, luckily for her, was bereft of hearing. And the mother, luckily for Drinkstein, was bereft of sight.

Musically speaking, this period of Drinkstein's was not particularly brilliant, since with the darkness of the hall, plus the closeness of Henriette to the keyboard, Drinkstein completely lost control over where he put-down his hands. The most outstanding work at this stage of Drinkstein's career was the music he composed to accompany a classic of the silent screen: "Kathy, queen of the saloon", a film by Dan Luther. Luther... loser of several Oscars... this forgettable director tells us a typical story of the wild west, in which a heroic cowboy saves the beautiful heroine from the clutches of a misshapen villain.

Here is Raymond Drinkstein's musical accompaniment for the silent movie "Kathy, queen of the saloon", in its original version for piano solo.

(Instrumental)