Returning to the circle

The long road home for a most vital organ

Last year, as Circle Cinema celebrated its 85th anniversary, Tulsa’s only standing, pre-WWII theater completed its transformation from a half-hollowed (though hallowed) edifice with its single, shoebox screen into today’s three-screen multiplex. Updated with state-of-the-art seating and projection equipment, shiny, new concessions, and a spiffy sidewalk ticket booth, the years of toil, worry, and more than its fair share of setbacks finally paid off. The ribbon cutting last summer represented a symbolic and literal crossing of the finish line for owner Clark Wiens and his tireless staff, plus the return of a piece of Tulsa’s heritage to its former glory, and then some.

But still, it wasn’t quite finished. Over the years, as phases of the theater’s renovation moved deliberately along, the thing Wiens anticipated most was the eventual return of the Circle’s original pipe organ. Now, on Friday, July 18, with the celebration of the Circle’s 86th year, audiences will get to see and hear one of the city’s most exciting and long-awaited homecomings.

“This was here for the sole purpose of playing background music for silent movies,” said Phil Judkins, the man responsible, with the help of some dedicated and skilled volunteers, for bringing the 1920s behemoth to back to life. “The bigger theaters had orchestras at first. But then they developed the theater organ, which was really just a pipe organ with pipes that sounded like orchestral instruments.”

Judkins, a professed organ hobbyist and a member of the local chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society, will perform on Circle’s lovingly restored Robert Morton original, providing the mirthful score for a screening of the 1920 Buster Keaton comedy, “One Week.” The film finds Keaton as a newlywed, gifted with a prefabricated, build-it-yourself house as wedding gift that, supposedly, can be assembled in one week. Unfortunately, a rejected suitor of his new bride has rearranged the order of the boxes, leaving Keaton mystified as how to properly build his new home. Hijinks ensue.

The film will screen Friday, July 18, as a part of the Circle’s birthday festivities that evening. There, audiences will learn of the organ’s history at the Circle, the Rube Goldbergian mechanics that make it possible for one player to command the impressive panoply of instruments and sounds (all of which are delightfully analog), and a mini-concert to demonstrate what this beautiful, wooden time capsule can do.

It’s not the mournful drone of a cathedral pipe organ (though The Phantom of the Opera could offer some fittingly ominous melodies). Instead, Judkins elicits scintillating strings, lilting flutes, vibrating xylophones, thunderous bass drums, and more than a few zany sounds that recall a Merrie Melodies cartoon more than a church, all with the press of a few keys or the flick of a switch. The way the natural tones fill the Circle’s newest and largest theater make for a trip back in time. It’s the sound of pure Americana.

Though the organ isn’t completely a relic of early 20th-century technology. I was touring the theater recently when Judkins pulled open a small drawer underneath the two-tiered keyboard to reveal a small MIDI module, which gives the old Robert Morton the ability to play songs without the benefit of a human, like a player piano.

“There’s an expense factor to the thing. When you hire an organist, they’re going to charge you union rates,” Judkins said with a grin. 

Full Circle: Happy 86th birthday to Tulsa’s indie movie house

Circle Cinema Birthday Celebration // Friday, July 18
Circle Cinema, 8 S. Lewis Avenue
Free to attend

The Circle celebrates another year with a free demonstration of its restored theater organ by the Sooner Chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society, complete with a brief history, a sing-along, behind-the-scenes footage of the organ loft, a two-reel movie, and birthday sweets.