Slow Left Hand

Also known as the "One-handed Piano Player".

This is what happens when an actor who doesn't know how to play piano is cast as a pianist -- and doesn't get proper instruction on how to fake it. They sit at the keyboard -- sometimes with their hands thoughtfully obscured by the cameraman's choice of angle -- and pretend to play. But while their right hands dance all along the full length of the ivories, their left hands hardly move -- if they move at all -- and nothing the cameraman can do short of pointing the camera elsewhere can hide it.

In extreme cases, neither hand moves, or moves in a manner that in any way corresponds to the music.

Meanwhile, the music on the soundtrack is obviously played by real pianist who knows how to use both hands.

Related to Special Effect Failure. Not to be confused with Red Right Hand, The Crawling Hand or The Left Hand of Darkness.


 * Seen It a Million Times -- I just can't remember where. Lots of 30s musical B-features come to mind, but no specific titles.  Help?

Film - Live-Action

 * It may come as a surprise, but Chico Marx was occasionally subject to this trope. A self-taught pianist, his left hand technique was somewhat limited, and at times vanished entirely when he had to mime playing to a pre-recorded soundtrack.  (A need, conscious or unconscious, to hide this may have contibuted to the comedic moves he made with his right hand while playing.)  A good example of his Slow Left Hand is visible in A Night at the Opera -- see this clip.
 * In the first scene of the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice, Mary is allegedly playing the piano, but does not appear to even touch the keyboard!
 * Farley Granger as Phillip in Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope plays piano during the course of the film, but the movements of his hands rarely correspond to the music he's supposedly playing.
 * Dooley Wilson in Casablanca is a classic example -- Sam's hand movements almost never match up to what he's playing. For the most part his right hand moves around more or less in the correct neighborhood, but there are times where it's obviously wrong -- for instance, during the first time he plays "As Time Goes By" for Ilsa there's a rapid treble run where his right hand should have ranged up and down the keyboard -- but it doesn't move an inch.