Lost 1936 Seattle film saved by local composer takes festival circuit by storm

Back in 1936, Richard Lyford, a 19-year-old Seattle filmmaker, was in the middle of making his seventh film, called “The Scalpel.” The film was shot here in Seattle and incorporated Lyford’s signature style and creative use of his limited resources, acting as an indie director long before the term became popular.

However, the film was never released in its entirety until this year.

Only fragments of “The Scalpel” were said to exist. That is, until Ed Hartman, producer and composer for 8th Sense Productions in Seattle, made a discovery earlier this year while scanning through a physical film estate he was given.

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“As I’m going through these films, looking at my vintage 16-millimeter editor, just going through all the films to make sure that I know what’s on everything, I discovered the first half of ‘The Scalpel,’ which I didn’t see before,” Hartman told KIRO Newsradio.

Hartman had been working with the Lyford family, scoring the film “As The Earth Turns” and creating a documentary about Lyford’s life, which helped get him access to the archive. He had also already scored the existing footage of “The Scalpel” before this discovery.

“If you think about this, the second half of the film was in the Seattle area. The first half of the film came from the East Coast, so we took these films, and through a couple of companies in town, we color-corrected and edited it,” Hartman said. “This has been going on for the last several months, and now it’s on an epic film festival run. I think it’s in 81 festivals so far and it’s won 91 awards and nominations, including its upcoming screening at local sightings in Seattle.”

The legacy of Lyford and his films is very important to Hartman, and it’s something that he considered extensively when creating a score for “The Scalpel.”

“It’s a wonderful gift to be able to score as a composer and not have constraints. On the other hand, you’re also dealing with somebody’s legacy and you have to decide, am I worthy of even doing this sort of thing? Impostor syndrome is real for any of us,” Hartman said. “So I had to make that decision. And luckily, the family is very supportive about all this stuff and seems to have liked everything I’ve done.”

He even said Chris, Richard’s son, thought he was right on with the creative decisions he was making.

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“When you score films, you have a director or maybe a producer that you bounce off of,” Hartman said. “They may love or hate your music, or may have you rewrite it seven times over, which is not great, and then come back to the first one after all of that. In this case, again, I had a free hand to do it.”

“The Scalpel” will be showing this Friday at the Local Sightings Film Festival at the Northwest Film Forum — the first time the movie has ever been shown in its entirety, and with Hartman’s score.

“For me, the art of scoring has to do with seeking out basic themes that you want to find initially and then develop them through the film,” Hartman said. “With a shorter film like ‘The Scalpel,’ which is 20 minutes, you don’t have a lot of time to develop. The other challenge about ‘The Scalpel’ is, a couple of years ago, I had scored the second half of that film. Now, I’m presented with the first half. Do I rescore everything?”

Hartman said this is an opportunity to learn about the history of independent filmmaking and its origins.

You can learn more about Ed Hartman’s work on his website and you get more information about “The Scalpel” and everything else at the Local Sightings Film Festival by visiting its website.

Paul Holden produces the Seattle weekend events calendar for KIRO Newsradio and a weekly story for MyNorthwest. He also appears regularly on KIRO Newsradio’s “Seattle’s Morning News.”