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This 1957 color promotional film, one of several created by Dallas Jones Productions for Chicago’s Hammond organ company, uses the characters of a church organist (Porter Heaps), a young protégé, and his layman father to dramatise the practical benefits of an electronic, console-style Hammond organ, highlighting the ability of its drawbar design to produce a diversity of tones and effects for any occasion (26:37).
Opening titles: “The Hammond Organ Company presents, The Kind of Music You Want” (0:28). Exterior: A Christian church with a cornice and pillars. Congregants enter. Inside the chapel, organ music is heard as men and women in their sunday best file into pews. A narrator identifies himself as the organist and choirmaster (0:38). A choir practice. Boys sing in closeup. The choirmaster dismisses them. Most leave with excitement, but one boy, “Tommy” lingers, interested by the organ as multiple voices are demonstrated (1:35). Tommy takes a seat at the Hammond C-3 organ bench and plays (2:50). A man in a suit and hat arrives at home, carrying a briefcase. “Helen, I’m home!” He finds an empty living room. No Tommy, despite a pair of baseball game tickets. Tom Sr. kisses his wife on the cheek and telephones a neighbor (3:48). The father goes out looking for Tommy in suburbia. After passing an empty baseball diamond, he heads to the church, and is startled to find Tommy at an organ: “What’s the big idea?” Tommy hangs his head in shame (5:06). Father suggests getting Tommy a “more practical,” more secular instrument. The organist makes a case for the practicality of his instrument (6:45). A ¾ view of the keyboard reveals two 61-note manuals and drawbars, which are adjusted to change the instrument’s harmonic voicing between bass and treble clef (7:47). Father approves, but only for Sundays. Drawbars are pushed in for a full demonstration. One drawbar provides a fundamental tone. Harmonics are added to produce a warm, reedy, clarinet-like sound. With another adjustment, the tone shifts to a shrill, vibrato-laden, “string” effect (8:26). Father remembers “stops or buttons” from pump organs of old. “Wouldn’t it be better just to push a button for the tone you want?” (9:50). 18 reverse-colored preset keys are introduced. The organist drives a hard bargain for the “tone typewriter,” explaining the customization afforded by drawbars (10:10). Tommy is sold. A percussive, staccato xylophone effect and smooth french horn voices are demonstrated, then combined for an orchestral style “Blue Danube” waltz (11:35). A “ballgame” setting. Flashback to a ballpark box office, bleachers, Toms Jr. and Sr. at a baseball game. Tommy remembers the tickets and his dad produces them (13:31). Mr. Heaps demonstrates a setting for accompanying a barbershop quartet at the local Elks Lodge. Men singing in four-part harmony (14:24). Tommy recalls seeing a Hammond organ at a local restaurant. Crossfade to a tossed salad. Diners are served by a waiter in epaulets, who passes a written request to a B-3 organist (15:16). A drowsy man returns home to his wife playing “Beautiful Dreamer” (17:07). A single man plays a more compact model (18:19). A teenage girl plays a bouncy number while wholesome teenagers drink cola and dance in a living room (18:59). A school organ accompanies a phys ed class of girls doing jumping jacks. Teens sing “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” A punchbowl at a gymnasium dance (19:54). A girl and her organ teacher wear earphones for silent practice (21:12). A school band. A vacant tuba. Tommy rushes from his locker to a Model E organ. Bass pedals are tapped with his feet in closeup (22:13). Back at church, Heaps reveals a hand injury, Tommy at the keys of a Hammond C-2 (25:18).
The Hammond organ was invented American engineer Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert. It was first manufactured in 1935. The original version generated sound using a metal tonewheel and then, starting in 1975, using integrated circuits. The company went out of business in 1985.
Organist Porter W. Heaps (1906-1999) was an Illinois native and organ teacher at Northwestern University. In the 1930s, he began a 40-year association with the Hammond organ company, aiding in the development of their unique drawbar design. Heaps toured the U.S. as a representative of Hammond, recording demonstration records and giving concert performances.
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