Melodie is the fictional rendition of an episode in the life of the late-18th-century violin maker, musician, and teacher Carl Ludwig Bachman (1743–1809). Two of his students are in love with Bachman’s daughter and are vying for her affection. Film Daily called it a “neat sentimental bit [which] nicely combines with classic melodies, costumes and color”. Melodie has indeed excellent production values, which belie the financial difficulties Colorart Synchrotone was experiencing at the time.
Colorart Pictures began producing Technicolor shorts in 1926; in 1929, it merged with Synchrotone Pictures Corporation and Kennedy Picture Corporation, forming the Colorart Synchrotone Corporation. Melodie was part of the one-reel short subject series “Color-Symphonies” that would culminate with the 1930 all-talking feature-length Technicolor film Mamba, directed by Albert S. Rogell. By 1932, however, Colorart Pictures was already out of business. Of the 52 Technicolor shorts produced by Colorart between 1926 and 1930, Melodie is one of the 18 that survive today. When released in 1929, the film was originally accompanied by a sound-on-disc music score. At the time of this writing, the disc is not known to survive. The print presented here is taken from a beautiful 35mm Technicolor dye-transfer print donated by Bob Geoghegan to the George Eastman Museum in 2014.

Anthony L’Abbate, Julia Mettenleiter