Keyword Fiddle

Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them.

A wily old codger matches wits with the King of the Leprechauns and helps play matchmaker for his daughter and the strapping lad who has replaced him as caretaker.

Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

The Ingenues perform "Tiger Rag," "Changes," "Mighty Lak' a Rose," "Keep Sweeping the Cobwebs Off the Moon," and "Shaking the Blues Away."

Country-western favorite Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys star in the Columbia musical western Smoky Mountain Melody. Not much happens plotwise: Acuff, playing "himself," is a tenderfoot who somehow manages to come out on top when he heads westward. The villains (who aren't all that villainous) try to promote a phony stock deal, but Roy and his pals foils their plans. The comedy honors go to Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as a blowhard sheriff. Smoky Mountain Melody was scripted by Barry Shipman, the son of pioneering female filmmaker Nell Shipman.

Meet the cheeky, but kind-hearted, Little Frick and his fiddle as he works for three years for three shillings and compassionately gives them away to every vagabond he meets. But the reward is immense.

Man of the people, taxi driver, Jean Carignan is above all else one of the world's greatest violinists. In his hands reels become complex, intelligent creations, played with a virtuosity worthy of Paganni, and which continue the traditions of a genre passed on orally. A genre which has retained its popularity, and whose giants include Skinner, Coleman, Allard. Jean Carignan tackles their repertoire, as well as reaping the harvest of his exploration of Irish and Scottish musical traditions, which has made of him an internationally renowned specialist in Celtic music. This film is also a love story between an impoverished child and his violin, and provide a unique window into a remarkable era.