Danse Macabre filmstrip with Harold Dexter Hoopes watercolors

Some folks have been looking for a copy of the Danse Macabre filmstrip they saw in elementary school--well, here it is; enjoy! It dates back to the early 1970s (when I first saw it), and is probably even older than that. Please forgive any lapse in quality--this is a copy of a VHS recording I made over a decade ago. My mother taught at the elementary school that I attended, and I wanted to record this before she retired. I have other recordings, currently misplaced...but when I saw that folks were looking for this, I decided not to wait further. Happy Halloween!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Danse
• Macabre
• Camille
• Saint-Saens
• Harold
• Dexter
• Hoopes
• filmstrip
• Jeanne
• Rice
• watercolor

[tlenzendorf1]

I have been looking for something similar to this for years. I remember it moving, though? It's the closest thing to the film strip that I remember, though.

[ubee0173]

@chadratic I have been doing the same thing. I dreaded it every year at school, but here I am watching it! It's the cat... it just has this hypnotic, gut-liquifying gaze that will haunt your dreams forever. I guess my love of the music outweighed my irrational fear of this filmstrip, though- VICTORY!

[Gideon1928]

I saw this in 2nd grade in the early 1980s. Our music teacher would tell us a scary story about a virtuoso violin player (Paganini?) who became demented and old and asked to be buried with his violin. When this promise was reneged on, he would rise out of the graveyard with the other skeletons, leading them in the celebration. My music teacher claimed to have bought a house overlooking the cemetery where this happened and the ensuing strip were pictures she took. Scares me to this day.

[hlltwin]

I remember watching this when I was a little girl. I always loved it. What's strange though... I thought I remembered the skeletons moving. But these are the images I saw and the fact it's an old filmstrip... yep. This is it. I had a wild imagination as a kid.

[ProfesseurLeRoux]

Me too. This actually dates back to at least the early 1960s. That's when I was in elementary school.

[Muffinzgalore52]

THANK YOU for this wonderful memory. I had a music teacher who played this each Halloween for us and I absolutely fell in love with it.

[sugarbunnie15]

I'm pretty sure this is the version they were still playing at my elementary school in the early 80's. It terrified me at the time and I got yelled at for not paying attention on year. Strangly enough, I now LOVE Halloween and creepy things. :)

[MasterJediV]

YES!!! I've been searching for this for ages, I kept telling myself it wasn't the other one that's in color from the 1980's because I swore it was different. Thank you!

[teddycarroll]

Thank you so much for posting this. My elementary school music teacher, Mrs. Schoup, played this for us every Halloween. I'm so happy to see it again after all these years.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

[Dracula766]

I've been searching years for this. These paintings were burned into my memory and the music has influenced me greatly.

THANK YOU!!!