Scope and Content Note
The Jack Butterworth Collection of Silent Film Cues spans the years 1917 to 1929 and consists of thematic music cue sheets for silent films. Some cue sheets are incomplete and many of them are annotated. The cue sheets are published by Cameo Music Service for films produced by several studios, including: Universal, Pathé, First National, William Fox, United Artists, Tiffany, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.
Early film industry publications included articles offering suggestions to movie house musicians regarding how to select and perform music for particular pictures. By the 1920s, thematic music cue sheets published by movie studios and independent publishers were ornate and included cue titles, musical incipits, and duration. Cameo Music Service in New York hired arrangers and composers to create these ready-made thematic cue sheets to serve as a shorthand guide to the film.