The Wizard of the Strings

Name: The Wizard of the Strings
Genre: Documentary, Short, Biography
Duration: 27 min
Rating: 5.6
Cast: Roy Smeck

1985
27m

IMDb RATING

5.6/10

YOUR RATING

Roy Smeck in The Wizard of the Strings (1985)

Biography Documentary Music Short

Profiles Roy Smeck, a former vaudeville star known as "The Wizard of the Strings" because of his virtuoso talents on the guitar, banjo, ukelele and Hawaiian guitar, and who is shown to be st... Read allProfiles Roy Smeck, a former vaudeville star known as "The Wizard of the Strings" because of his virtuoso talents on the guitar, banjo, ukelele and Hawaiian guitar, and who is shown to be still active, in his mid-80s, teaching students and giving occasional public performances.Profiles Roy Smeck, a former vaudeville star known as "The Wizard of the Strings" because of his virtuoso talents on the guitar, banjo, ukelele and Hawaiian guitar, and who is shown to be still active, in his mid-80s, teaching students and giving occasional public performances.

Director
- Peter Friedman
Star
- Roy Smeck

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.6/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Peter Friedman
Star
- Roy Smeck

1User review

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 win & 1 nomination total

Photos

Featured review

10/10

uke can get it if you really want

I see that I'm the first person reviewing Peter Friedman's Academy Award-nominated documentary. "The Wizard of the Strings" focuses on ukulele player Roy Smeck, of whom I had never heard before watching it. Smeck knew just about everything that there was to know about the ukulele. It sounds as though Smeck continued playing into his 80s, and in the documentary he showed off a number of the tricks that he could do with the instrument. Cool stuff. It goes to show that if you have a talent, by all means exercise it.

It's obviously not the most well known documentary, but thanks to the wonders of the internet, I watched it on YouTube (as I have a number of other Oscar-winning (or nominated) documentary shorts. I recommend this one.