Walt at Random

Now that the flood of responses on my quick quiz has slowed down…

Which is to say: Now that it’s become pretty clear that nobody gives a damn…

It’s time for the answers, and for the post that I was holding off on–but that post may have less to it than I originally thought.

The Answers

The song’s penultimate line was, as noted:

And everybody knows that the very last line

• The last line is: “Is the doctor said, give him jug band music, it seems to make him feel just fine.” (Presumably, everybody knows that because–with changes in the first word–that’s the last line of each verse.)
• The name of the song: “Jug Band Music.” (There’s more than one song with that title. This is one that doesn’t happen to be jug band music.)
• The name of the writer: John Sebastian.
• The name of the lead singer: John Sebastian.
• The name of the group: The Lovin’ Spoonful
• Bonus answer: The song was on Daydream, released in 1966. That was apparently the Spoonful’s best-selling album: It reached #10 on the charts.

The song is a hoot, as are the lyrics–it’s very much a wacky story-song. It’s also, in some ways, a classic earworm–as are several other Spoonful songs. I finally picked up a good copy of a decent selection of Spoonful songs from SecondSpin, a 2000 “Greatest Hits” CD that was remastered from the masters–the earlier CDs I had were made during an extended period in which the master tapes were apparently lost or unavailable.

Auditory memory

Anyway…while I was listening to this, I found that I was hearing a John Sebastian song that was not a Lovin’ Spoonful song–and a song that I probably hadn’t heard in at least 25 years, namely She’s a Lady.

The song appeared on Sebastian’s first solo album (John B. Sebastian) in 1970. (Now that I check it on Wikipedia, I see that there weren’t all that many other memorable tracks on it–and that Sebastian had to make it with a bunch of nobody session players: Some unknowns named Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Dallas Taylor, Buddy Emmons…life is tough when you don’t have connections in the music industry.)

It’s a beautiful little ballad (“little” is right–the original is under two minutes). I could hear it plain as day, including the low-key orchestration…

I suspect everybody’s a little different when it comes to auditory memory. Sometimes, I can hear pieces, fully arranged, that I haven’t heard in years (or in this case in decades). Sometimes, I can even manipulate the arrangements.

Are earworms like that? When a song gets stuck in your head, do you just hear a melody, or do you hear the whole arrangement?

There’s another question: Is my auditory memory accurate? There’s no good way of knowing, I suppose.

Nothing momentous here. I will say that having a good if flakey auditory memory is helpful when someone mentions one of the really annoying earworms: I can usually drive it out with something I like.

Some time this holiday weekend (it is a holiday weekend, isn’t it?) soon (giving the legions of readers both a chance to weigh in on this!), I’ll probably do a post about one particular kind of memory.

Before that post, here’s a quick quiz–one where I suspect old fogies have an advantage.

There’s a song in which the penultimate lyric is:

And everybody knows that the very last line

What are:

• The last line
• The name of the song (if you know the first, you’ll know the second)
• The name of the writer or lead singer, your choice
• The name of the group for the original recording
• Bonus answer: The year in which it was released.

Using a search engine to find the answer is just plain tacky. So is using a lyrics site.

Updated February 17, 2010: The answers are in this post.

We put Across the Universe on our Netflix list when it came out–I’m not quite sure why. When it arrived and we read over the blurb, my wife said “This is probably one you’ll want to watch on your own–unless you think I’d like it.”

So I started in, using headphones as I usually would if I’m the only one watching. Using headphones: That’s a significant point, and in this case a Really. Bad. Idea. Because you can hear the musical arrangements extremely well…and that was unfortunate. Within ten minutes, I reassured my wife, “No, you probably don’t want to watch this.” I did watch it all the way through…a bad habit acquired when watching the old public-domain flicks.

Backing up a bit

Understand: We both like (most) musicals. We both enjoyed Mamma Mia!, which in some ways is a similar idea (build a movie around one group’s songs, with actors doing all the singing). (I know what people have said, but we thought Pierce Brosnan’s singing was perfectly acceptable for the situation.) We both like (some) Beatles music.

And, in fact, I don’t fault the actors singing the Beatles songs in Across the Universe. I thought Evan Rachel Wood did a credible job, Jim Sturgess was thin but OK, Martin Luther was good, and Dana Fuchs didn’t actually make my ears bleed very much (in any case, I think she was supposed to be channeling Janis Joplin at her most abrasive).

Set aside the “story”

I’m not going to concern myself with the so-called plot, the so-called acting and all that. It was what it was–pretty sad, but it was what it was. I’d certainly never sit through it again.

What really got to me were the arrangements.

[Section deleted because I really don't know much about the people in charge, and so shouldn't ascribe motives. What I do know is what I heard--which was particularly uninteresting, leaden electric bass and drum parts in the arrangements that use the instruments.]

OK, I get that McCartney was somewhat of a revolutionary in making the electric bass something other than a percussion instrument. I’ll admit that I never thought of Starr as a world-class drummer, but compared to what goes on in these arrangements, he’s a master of subtlety and technique.

There were a couple of real singers in the performance. Bono should be ashamed. Let’s let it go at that. Still, going to IMDB, I see dozens (hundreds!) of enthusiastic reviews, along with some bad ones (apparently, 186 reviewers out of 441 gave it less than 7.5 stars out of 10–and 52 of those gave it the lowest possible rating. I’m with that group, thanks).

That’s a trick question, as the emphasis here is on heard; only you can decide what constitutes “good” in your case.

Or maybe the question is, “Depending on how and why you listen, do you know what you’re missing?”

Don’t worry–I’m not going to get into Audiophilia Extremis. I don’t have that kind of money or those kind of ears. I’m talking about differences that I really believe almost anyone who cares about music will hear–at least subconsciously and probably consciously.

Background

I recently decided to upgrade my 2GB $40 MP3 player (Sansa Express) to a 4GB $50 player, at a total upgrade cost of $10. Which is to say, Office Depot had house-brand 2GB microSD cards on sale for $10, and the Sansa Express has a microSD expansion card.

I long ago reripped all my CDs at 320K MP3, the highest quality for MP3, because I thought I could hear the difference between 192K (which I’d originally ripped at) and 320K–and I was certain I could hear the difference between 128K and 192K, without even paying attention.

So I was going to choose something like 450 tunes to fit into 4GB (at 320K, music typically uses about 2.3 megabytes per minute; figure right around 28 hours of music for 4GB, or around 420-480 songs, given that lots of the songs I like are 4-6 minutes)

But I remembered, before I started in, that I’d planned to do some selective editing of some cuts, and two cuts could be dealt with very easily. (There are quite a few where I’d like to do a bit of editing, but that takes time…) Namely,

• James Taylor’s version of “Walking My Baby Back Home” has an inexplicable 50 seconds of pure silence at the end of the song–probably a CD mastering error of some sort.
• The Beatles’ “Hey Jude”…well, I find the last 2+ minutes excruciatingly repetitive, and I can actually do without John’s yelping.

So I downloaded Audigy (again–I’d had it on my old desktop, although I’d never used it) and the MP3/Export plugin. (There’s apparently now a good free competitor to Audigy, which I haven’t investigated: I don’t do a lot of sound editing, obviously.)

And opened “Walking My Baby Back Home,” confirmed that the last 50 seconds were in fact a flat line on the audio visualization, and deleted all but the first three seconds. Then saved it.

And played it in Windows Media Player…and, well, ugh. It was lifeless, a little muffled, uninteresting. Then checked the filesize. Hmm. 2.2MB for a 2.5 minute song.

Whoops. The MP3 export defaults to 128KMP3. I hadn’t checked that.

So, reripped the file (at 320K–I’d set Windows Media Player for that and it’s a sticky setting), redid the edit in Audigy, and saved it again–after changing the MP3 setting to 320K.

It sounded great; pretty much identical to the CD, and worlds better than the 128K MP3.

This should come as no surprise

128K MP3 is somewhere between AM and FM quality, at best. You’re throwing away 90% of the data in the original recording: How can you expect that the results won’t be damaged? (And, of course, “restoring” 128K MP3 to a CD-R as .WAV files does not do anything to improve the sound quality. “Lossy” means just that.)

What did come as a surprise was how obvious the loss was–and this wasn’t through some fancy stereo system or even the lovely Altec-Lansing PC speakers I used to use. It was through $10 Sony clipon semi-earbuds. (I’m not sure what to call them. They have loops that go over your ears; the speakers themselves sit sideways into your ear, but they’re not really in-ear phones. They’re a damn site better than the usual earbuds that come wih music players–and that certainly includes iPods, from everything I’ve heard, but come on: They’re $10 devices!)

Other voices heard from

I was reading an anecdote where someone’s son, home from college for the holidays, happened to listen to a CD of music he enjoyed–and had been listening to on a portable music player at a typical bitrate (probably 128K-164K). And suddenly exclaimed about how much better it sounded, how much more music was there.

True golden-ear readers (if there are any of you out there) will be appalled that I’m listening to MP3 at all, or that I even consider CD to be good sound quality. (Even worse, I believe that some of the CD-Rs I used to record, consisting of 320K MP3 expanded back to WAV, may just possibly sound better than the original CDs–which turns out to be at least theoretically possible, given jitter issues. Let’s not press that point.) Understand: I don’t claim to be golden-eared, and may not be too far away from hearing aids. $500 headphones and $50,000 speakers would just be wasted on me, I suspect.

I was using the $10 Sonys, which are great for travel (the Sansa Express is an unusually compact player–basically a fat flash drive–and it and the Sonys fit into a little zipped change purse that I can drop in my pocket), because my old home headphones (a $30 Radio Shack set with titanium elements, probably made by Koss) fell apart: the cheapo plastic hinges just snapped after a few years of use.

Since then, I’ve acquired some surprisingly decent headphones–Sennheiser PX100, oddly-foldable on-ear (but not circumaural) phones that cost $37.50 at Amazon. (They just arrived today. The first time I’ve ever purchased audio equipment based on Consumer Reports’ recommendation. They’re excellent by my standards, but headbangers and bass fanatics won’t like them. They’re designed to travel well.) I’m sure the differences would be even more obvious on these, to say nothing of anything like high-end equipment.

Try it yourself

If you have even halfway decent headphones (or speakers, for that matter), and if you’re listening to low-bitrate downloads or rips, and if you have a CD with any of the music you’re listening to…well, give it a try. Actually listen to the same songs (particularly songs with voices and acoustic instruments, e.g., guitar, piano, whatever–folk, jazz, you name it) in both forms. Pay attention.

I think you’ll find there’s just more music than you’ve been hearing–maybe not more notes, but a lot more to the notes. You’ll hear the instruments more clearly, you’ll get more out of the singers.

There’s also a subconscious aspect to this, at least for many (most?) of us. If you find that you stop listening to your digital music after half an hour or so, you may be suffering “digital fatigue”–the nature of the loss and artifacts in low-bitrate digital music tends to be tiring. I love Pandora, but I really can’t listen to it for more than 20-30 minutes; it makes my ears hurt. That’s true of almost all streaming music.

Maybe you’ll find that you don’t hear a difference or don’t care about the difference. Maybe you’ll find that you do.

If you do, there are steps you can take:

• Rerip your CDs, either to .WAV (if you have loads of disk space and devices that can handle it) or a lossless format such as FLAC (again, if you have loads of space and compatible devices), or at least to high-bitrate MP3 (I’d suggest 256K or high VBR at a minimum; 320K is the max). After all, disk space is cheap these days–surely you can afford a gigabyte for every seven hours of music?
• If you use a portable player, think about the tradeoffs. Do you really feel the need for 2,000 songs on your 8GB player? Personally, I’d rather have 450 songs I really care about than 4,000 songs that I may never listen to more than once a year. But that’s me. (I wound up with 463 songs, after going through the 2,200 I have on hard disk and informally rating them. I could squeeze a few more in, but this is good. If I wanted to include all the songs that I rated at least as “pretty good” (3 stars) instead of just “very good” (4 stars) and “excellent” (5 stars), I’d need an 8GB player. Maybe next year. Maybe not: The very good/excellent playlist is both varied and quite wonderful.)
• If you’re still using the earbuds that came with the player–no matter how much the player itself cost–try something a little better. $10 will get you semi-decent devices; $20 will buy fair sound; $40 will buy pretty good sound. From what I’ve read and heard, most name-brand players (including iPods, Sansa’s devices, Muze and Creative’s players) will produce much better sound than the default earbuds provide; they just need better earphones.

I won’t tell you what kind of music you should enjoy. I will suggest that some of you may not be really hearing the music you love–and that you’ll enjoy it more when you do. (And you don’t need to go for broke to do that: Note that my “stereo system” at this point cost $87.50 total, and is very satisfying.)

I seem to remember reading a post from a liblogger suggesting that, in general, libloggers were posting less now than in the past–and, if I remember correctly, suggesting that I might have actual numbers. (Sorry, lost track of the post where this was mentioned.)

Well, I do and I don’t–and the situation’s a little complicated.

In the immediate sense, it’s almost certainly true that libloggers (that is, library people who blog) are posting less now–because it’s summer, a whole bunch of people have announced they’re taking the summer off from blogging, people are on vacation more…

In a broader sense? Yes, I have the same naive sense–and eventually I should have reasonably good evidence, probably with a whole bunch of ancillary suggestions. (Yes, I’m the midst of One Project. More on that soon, either here or in C&I.)

So far, I can look at “200″ liblogs (well, actually 197, but who’s counting?), of which 154 had posts both in March-May 2007 and March-May 2008. (Some of the others began between June and December 2007, my cutoff; some shut down before March 2008; some simply didn’t have any posts during one quarter or the other.)

BUT–and it’s a big caveat–I have no reason at all to believe those 197 liblogs are representative of the “visible English-language liblog universe,” even as I define it (which contains somewhere around 580 liblogs in all). They might be; they might not. What they have in common is that the sortable blog names (that is, shorn of initial articles and odd punctuation) begin with A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H–and the first four of 40-odd ones beginning with I.

So these numbers may mean nothing at all, but here they are:

• 42 of the 154 (27%) had significantly more posts in 2008 than in 2007–I’m defining “significantly” as at least 10% more. Of those, 31 (20%) had at least 25% more posts.
• 14–that is, 9%–stayed roughly the same, with from 10% fewer to 10% more posts in 2008.
• 98 of the 154 (64%) had significantly fewer posts in 2008 than in 2007, including 51 (one-third) with fewer than half as many posts. There’s your big figure: More libloggers posted less than half as often in 2008 than posted significantly more often.
• Overall, there were 23% fewer posts among these blogs.

There are all sorts of correlations you could do (are the posts longer, for example), and I plan to do some of those. I did one quick one, because I also had a naive sense about this: That, in general, people might be commenting more on each post.

Just looking at cases where there were significant changes in comments per post (again using +10% or -10% as the boundaries for significance):

• 58 of the 154 (38%) had at least 10% more comments per post, and in all casea had at least 20% more comments per post. Of those, 49 (32%) hat at least 50% more comments per post.
• 48 of the 154 (31%) had at least 10% fewer comments per post–but only 18 (12%) had fewer than half as many comments per post. (The rest? Some had no real changes; some don’t allow comments; some simply didn’t have any comments in 2007–in which case percentages couldn’t be calculated.)
• So: More liblogs had at least 50% more comments per post in 2008 than had any significant decline in comments per post. For this subgroup, it appears to be true that people are commenting more on each post.

That’s enough numbers for now, particularly given that huge caveat. Would the umpty-zillion liblogs beginning with “L” show sharply different characteristics? Time will tell…or not, because that’s sort of a silly subanalysis once the metrics are complete.

["Umpty-zillion" is a term useful in NSWAG work--that is, non-scientific wild-ass guessing. I think the actual number for this universe is somewhere betweeen 80 and 120. Isn't it odd that so many liblogs start with "l"--and mostly with "lib"! Imagine that.]

That’s right–the protected music you purchased from Yahoo! will soon lose its transferability, unless you evade the DRM by burning the tracks to CD as CD Audio, then reripping. And, of course, if you rerip in any lossy format, the results will probably be worse than the originals, since taking music through multiple lossy compression/expansion cycles works even worse than it does with photos.

Microsoft was ready to do the same thing, but after uproar they’ve decided to support the servers for at least a few more years.

Admittedly, we’re dealing with tiny obscure little companies here. Presumably you feel safe that a giant like Apple would never, ever shut down a service, so you’re safe with your DRM tracks from iTunes…

No, I’m not directly affected: I’ve never purchased downloadable audio of any sort, and if I do, it will be DRM-free. I may be indirectly affected, though: I used and loved MusicMatch Jukebox Pro to manage my all-ripped-from-my-CDs music collection (it had great label-printing and CD insert-printing facilities and, in the Pro version, solid ripping and burning capabilities). Yahoo bought the company and shut down MusicMatch Jukebox. The transfer to Yahoo Jukebox eventually worked fairly well…but I’m wondering whether there is any long-term future for that program and whether my software will eventually come up short. Note that this was Pro: I paid for the software. (Comments on the desirability of switching to iTunes will be cheerfully ignored.)

Remember: DRM protects the publisher’s “rights,” not yours–Digital Restrictions Management continues to be a better expansion of the term. (Yes, sigh, I do buy media with DRM…but they’re physical media–DVDs–so there are slightly fewer issues. And I don’t much care for it even there.)

I wouldn’t have read this Wired article at all, except that Peter Suber quoted a chunk of it…including portions of these two paragraphs.

The most common of the economies built around free is the three-party system. Here a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties. Sound complicated? You’re probably experiencing it right now. It’s the basis of virtually all media. [Emphasis added.]

In the traditional media model, a publisher provides a product free (or nearly free) to consumers, and advertisers pay to ride along. Radio is “free to air,” and so is much of television. Likewise, newspaper and magazine publishers don’t charge readers anything close to the actual cost of creating, printing, and distributing their products. They’re not selling papers and magazines to readers, they’re selling readers to advertisers. It’s a three-way market.

Virtually all media. Isn’t that interesting? So, just to make it clear:

• Media: Commercial broadcast TV and radio. Most magazines and newspapers. Portions of the web.
• Not media: Books. Sound recordings. DVDs. Movies in general. Premium cable (HBO, Showtime, etc.) Other portions of the web.

OK, so he said virtually all Hmm. Let’s see what the government figures are for 2002 (they’ve changed since then, to be sure–but not enough to throw the percentages off all that much):

• Broadcast TV and radio, magazines, newspapers: $134 billion.
• Books, motion pictures and sound recordings: $106 billion.

I’m not sure that I can come up with any usage of “virtually all” that would fit $134 out of $240. Maybe my command of the English language is lacking. Or maybe my command of absurd generalizations is insufficient for me ever to get a job with Wired. I can live with that.

Update: For some reason, I missed the Statistical Abstract when I was at the Census Bureau’s website. StatAbs has more recent figures–for 2005.

• Newspapers, periodicals, broadcasting: $149 billion
• Books, motion pictures, sound recordings: $120 billion

The percentages haven’t changed significantly: just under 45% of “the media” are paid for.

Faithful readers may know that I’m somewhat of a troglodyte when it comes to portable electronics–particularly when I used to fly a lot, I really liked (and still like) to travel light, I have no desire for 24×365 availability, I find it difficult to listen to music and actually read or think at the same time…

The first crack appeared last summer at ALA when I tried Twitter via a cheap Virgin Mobile prepay cell phone with a tiny QWERTY keyboard. Twitter didn’t do it for me (by the way, for those of you continuing to sign up to follow me: I’m not there–but Twitter doesn’t actually allow you to leave)–but the cheaper cell phone made sense if I needed to call home. Since that was the conference where I wound up spending a night in DFW’s American terminal, it was just as well. (And I’ll have the same phone with me in Philadelphia, usually turned off…)

Actually, though, the first crack appeared maybe three (or four) years ago. I picked up a $15 portable CD player to try on a couple of speaking trips, thinking it might be nice to have music in the airport waiting lounges or if I needed cheering up in the hotel. (Actually, it was a $25 player, since I immediately replaced the crappy earbuds with adequate $10 Sony half-in-ear earclip units.) Mixed results: Yes, I liked having music once in a while–but the CD player, little coin purse for the headphones, and wallet full of CDs was a little bulky–particularly since I’d use it for maybe 2-4 hours on any given trip.

Meanwhile, I’d digitized my CD collection–twice. First at 196Kbps, then at 320K, since I found even 196K MP3 tiring after 15-20 minutes. I’ve burned loads of compilation CDs over the past five or six years…

I’d been following reviews of portable MP3 players for a while. I knew the issues with hard disks. I knew that most players come with poor earbuds but already had a decent set of replacements. And I knew which brands had decent reputations for value and good-quality electronics.

So when Office Depot had a sale the week before Christmas on a unit from a brand I recognized, that seemed to meet my basic criteria, from a series that had gotten decent reviews and at a price that was too low to quibble over, I pounced.

No, it’s not an iPod. Why would you even ask? I didn’t plan to spend $100 or more, I don’t plan to watch videos, I don’t use iTunes…

It’s a SanDisk Sansa Express 2GB player–basically a slightly oversized, fairly thick USB Flash Drive. 3.1 by 0.9 by 0.7 (at thickest) to 0.4 inches, maybe two ounces, four-line display (one orange line for battery and current song #, three blue lines for selections), simple control pad. 15-hour lithium rechargeable battery (not apparently replaceable), charges via the same USB 2.0 port you use to transfer music. (Turns out the case is just a little too wide at that end for the front USB ports on my 5.5-year-old Gateway–but SanDisk includes a short USB extender, which works just great. When/if I get a new Gateway, this won’t be an issue.)

Selling points? Well, SanDisk should know something about flash memory, being one of the biggest producers. I knew 2GB was enough for what I wanted, even at 320K–I have about 320 of my favorite songs (pretty much everything I’d want to hear on the road), with about 100Meg to spare. (Yahoo! Jukebox immediately recognized the Sansa–no software install–and handles it flawlessly: Just drag-and-drop, or synchronize if my Jukebox library was small enough.) I wanted flash disk for durability. A small and slightly chunky design suited me better than the thin-and-flat but taller-and-wider designs. And at $49, who could argue with the price?

Of course, it wasn’t really $49. It was really $64–because I don’t travel with a notebook computer, so just in case I use it a lot, it makes sense to add a tiny little AC-to-USB plug ($15 at Fry’s)–which, oddly, is marketed as an iPod accessory, even though (most?) iPods require an adapter cable to use it.

I’ve tried it out with the superb titanium-element over-the-ear headphones I have at home: The sound quality is just fine, comparable to a regular CD player. It has shuffle play, which is how I’ll usually use it–I trimmed my first load of songs a little, so that I’m basically going to enjoy listening carefully to whatever comes up. (That’s less than 10% of what’s in the music library. So it goes.)

I was quite amused to see an announcement of an $80 microphone plugin so you could use an iPod for voice recording. It’s a good idea–but this $49 Sansa already includes voice recording. Haven’t tried it, don’t know whether I’ll ever use it, but (as with most non-Apple MP3 players) it’s there, and integrated into the software. And, as with most others, there’s also an FM tuner, which I might or might not ever use.

I’m not a lanyard person, and I don’t expect to be using this on the exhibit floor or during walks or while reading or dining…but I sure can see using it while waiting for or riding on a plane. Turns out it fits nicely in the little coin purse that holds the Sony headphones, and that just drops in any pocket with not much bulge.

Nothing momentous here. Love your iPod? More power to you; so do my brother and sister-in-law and millions of other people. This just suited my own needs better. (Oh, and if I ever do decide that 2GB isn’t enough…well, there’s a microSD slot on the Sansa Express also, so I could upgrade to 4GB for, what, $20 more–or have several loaded 2GB microSD cards.)

Hmm. I’ve got 100MB left. I don’t do well with podcasts at home but there’s at least two Uncontrolled Vocabulary episodes I’d really like to hear. Maybe I’ll load them and see whether Midwinter allows enough downtime…

Roy Rogers is riding again…and Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, John Wayne and a slew of others, some singing, some not.

This is one of the early 50-Movie Packs: You can tell by the silent still TreeLine logo that starts each side. (Somewhat later ones have the same logo with motion effects and music. More recent ones have an animated MillCreek logo with sound effects.)

Many of these movies were one-hour second features, “oaters” to fill the second half of a double bill. Not all, by any means, but the total running time for the 50 movies is just under 60 hours (59:57)—more than the original Family Classics (56:36) but a lot less than, say, the Classic Musicals (66:5) or the Hollywood Legends I’m interleaving this with (73:44, about as long as any 50-pack is likely to get). I should note that those timings come from the Mill Creek Entertainment website, which now seems extremely forthcoming about what’s in each set and its actual length (although lots of the disc sleeves are still inaccurate).

Some of the discs cluster films with the same star. That can be a trifle disconcerting. For starters, five early Tex Ritter movies right in a row is probably two too many.

Disc 1

Tex Ritter did an awful lot of movies in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and you can read that any way you want. How many? Forty “Tex” movies between 1936 and 1942—in all of which his character’s first name was “Tex.” Then he did another 20 between 1942 and 1945, movies where he learned a different name for the role.

Ritter was important as a country singer and may be best known today for his singing of “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling” in High Noon—and, of course, as the father of John Ritter. As an actor and singing cowboy, particularly in these five movies from the first three years of his movie career (1936-1938), including the first? Not so much.

You could count on several things in these pictures: Ritter doing fancy (and fast) shooting, typically shooting some gunslinger’s gun out of his hand. A big fight scene, where Ritter triumphs—and the bad guy’s cohorts don’t try to draw their guns until Ritter’s done (at which point Ritter’s companion draws on them, of course). Ritter wearing a white hat (and riding his white horse White Flash) and the well-dressed lead villain (usually) wearing a black hat. A young woman deeply involved in the plot, and Ritter riding away or otherwise ending up with her (and companion, sometimes) at the end of the film—sometimes married, sometimes not.

Oh, and Ritter singing with a big smile on his face. In the first two movies here and to some extent in the others, I’d call it “singifyin’” more than singing—akin to speechifyin’ as compared to speaking. He overdoes it, going for extra effects and becoming a parody of country singing—sometimes with songs that seem to be twelve-bar compositions repeated over and over again. It’s clear that Ritter could sing well and without overdoing it, particularly since he does that (sometimes) in his very first movie. I can only assume that the over-the-top style was what his director or audience wanted.

Rollin’ Plains, 1938, b&w, Albert Herman (dir.), Tex Ritter, White Flash, Horace Murphy, Snub Pollard, Harriet Bennet, Hobart Bosworth, Ed Cassidy, Karl Hackett, Charles King, Beverly Hillbillies. 0:57

Texas Ranger Tex Lawrence is tracking down a troublemaker who’s causing grief between the sheep farmers and the cattlemen. (This time, the villains are the sheep farmers.) While gang leader Trigger Gargan is the obvious culprit, the real culprit’s a leading citizen. Smilin’ Tex and his goofy sidekicks save the day after getting in various sorts of peril, and of course he gets the girl. One of those with a huge battle on horses, where it’s really not clear who’s shooting at who—just lots of stunt men on lots of horses shooting, once in a while one of them falling over. Dark, choppy, damaged. Very charitably, $0.75.

Sing Cowboy Sing, 1937, b&w, Robert N. Bradbury (dir.), Tex Ritter, White Flash, Al St. John, Louise Stanley, Horace Murphy, Snub Pollard, Karl Hackett, Robert McKenzie, The Texas Tornadoes. 0:59.

This time, the ruthless gang leader shoots the man running a “freight company” so they can get the contract and take over the town. The woman in peril is the daughter. Tex (not a Ranger this time) and a different goofy sidekick saves the day, after getting thrown in jail. Note cast overlaps: White Flash always plays a horse, but the sidekick on one picture may be the sheriff in the next, and so on…even the villains tend to reappear. Also the murky gun battle. This one’s damaged, choppy, and really pretty awful. Purely for historical value, a token $0.25.

The Mystery of the Hooded Horseman, 1937, b&w, Ray Taylor (dir.), Tex Ritter, White Flash, Iris Meredith, Horace Murphy, Charles King, Earl Dwire, The Range Ramblers. 1:00.

My notes here consist of “arrggh…” But that may be unfair. Slightly different plot (this time it’s a bunch of hooded horsemen—not just one—terrorizing folks and in particular a should-be-worthless mine), same-as-usual woman in distress and Tex with a sidekick. Once again he gets arrested. Once again there’s a different villain than you’d expect. Once again…oh, never mind. At least the singing’s a little more normal. $0.50.

Arizona Days, 1937, b&w, John English (dir.), Tex Ritter, Sid Saylor, William Faversham, Eleanor Stewart, Snub Pollard, Horace Murphy, Earl Dwire, Bud Buster. 0:57 [0:41]

This one’s truly frustrating. Tex and yet another sidekick join up with a traveling show (essentially buying their way in—Tex pays debts owed by the show in its last town), so Tex gets to sing on a stage for a change. Then, suddenly, Tex is out trying to collect delinquent taxes from some villainous types. What happened here? What happened here is 16 minutes—a missing reel in the middle of the movie, during which (apparently) the show’s wagons get burned down and Tex has to become a tax collector to make ends meet. Better singing and a different plot (sort of), but messed up pretty badly by the missing reel. Assuming that you pay any attention to the plot in these anyway… Even so, $0.75.

Song of the Gringo, 1936, b&w, John P. McCarthy (dir.), Tex Ritter, Joan Woodbury, Fuzzy Knight, Monte Blue, Ted Adams, Forrest Taylor. 1:02.

The first of the lot and the most unusual. Tex (a Ranger again, I think) is sent to investigate the deaths of a bunch of miners and goes undercover to infiltrate the gang that’s probably murdering them. Most of this is set in a Spanish (or early California?) ranchero with the beautiful senorita as love interest, and the true villain a business partner of the head of the ranchero. Lots of singing, with one song wildly over the top but most pretty good. Oh, and this time Tex gets blamed for several murders, put on trial, and does a Perry Mason bit, sort of. Choppy and damaged, but in some ways the best of this lot. $0.75.

If it seems as though not much time has gone by since Disc 9, there’s a simple reason: The first two movies on this disc were repeats from the Family Classics pack, and I didn’t watch them a second time–although I watched the first quarter of Royal Wedding again because it’s such a delight. Expect Disc 11 soon, for the same reason: both movies on Side A are repeats.

Royal Wedding, 1951, color, Stanley Donen (dir.), Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill, Keenan Wynn. 1:33.

[Note: This movie was also in the Family Classics megapack and the review that follows is from that copy. The movie is such a treat that I watched part of it again; the color and sound are both fine.] Fred Astaire dancing on the walls, on the ceiling, and on a cruise ship dance floor in heavy seas—with Jane Powell, who’s very good. Excellent print through most of the movie (with slight damage in a few minutes), and a wonderful movie—not much of a plot (and Peter Lawford didn’t exactly set the screen on fire with his thespian abilities), but great dancing, fine singing, and just plain charming. Technicolor, generally vivid color. $2.00

The Pied Pier of Hamelin, 1957, color, Bretaigne Windust (dir.), Van Johnson, Claude Raines, Jim Backus, Kay Starr, Doodles Weaver. 1:29 [1:27]

[Also in the Family Classics megapack and not newly reviewed.] Made for TV? While the print’s generally very good, there are quite a few little gaps—more disturbing than usual since this is a musical. Van Johnson has two roles (one of them the Pied Piper). The conceit here is that the music is all by Grieg. The problem here is that it’s a lackluster picture. OK, but no more than that. $0.75.

Wild Guitar, 1962, b&w, Ray Dennis Teckler (dir.), Arch Hall Jr., Nancy Czar, Arch Hall Sr., Ray Dennis Steckler. 1:32 [1:29].

Remember Eegah? (C&I 6:12, October 2006) It was a thoroughly lame “scifi” movie slightly redeemed by Richard Kiel (Jaws in Moonraker) as the slightly pre-human title character. It was considerably less redeemed by an untalented and not wildly attractive teenager who tended to break out in song at various intervals, mostly sappy ballads. That teenager was Arch Hall Jr., and the director (and, I believe, producer) was his father, Arch Hall Sr., who also acted in the film.

So here we have the same father-son team (although Hall Sr. found a different director), the same mediocre ballads—one of them literally the same—and a picture about corrupt music managers that might have promise if it wasn’t such dreck. Arch Hall Jr. plays a kid who blows into LA from South Dakota with a guitar and $0.15—and immediately Makes It Big, albeit with a crooked promoter (his father) and the promoter’s gunslinging evil sidekick (played by the director). Nancy Czar is, of course, the beauty who falls for him despite silly obstacles (she’s a fine ice skater, based on one of the film’s better sequences). There are also a trio of would-be crooks who make the Three Stooges look like Ivy Leaguers. “Wild” is about as far from this kid’s guitar stylings as you can get: He’s all swoony moony June. Amusing dreck—but still dreck. $1.00.

Murder with Music, 1941, b&w, George P. Quigley (dir.), Nellie Hill, Bob Howard, Noble Sissle & orchestra. 0:59 [0:57].

A bunch of good music from little-heard musical groups—and a plot that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s another all-black movie (Nellie Hill was also in Killer Diller, reviewed in C&I 7.5, in a smaller role). Unfortunately, the first half is choppy—those missing two minutes seem to be a half-second at a time, through enough musical and plot sections to make viewing difficult. Too bad; the second half’s better and the music (and one dance number) is excellent. Even with those flaws, it’s worth $1.00.

A quick note about some IMDB reviews, particularly of the second and third movies: I don’t know how to write down a razzberry, but that and some unprintable language constitute my comment. And calling Hi-De-Ho a “race film,” while possibly accurate in terms of original distribution, says more about the commenter than about the first-rate universal talent of Cab Calloway and his band.

Till the Clouds Roll By, 1946, Color, Richard Whorf (dir.), June Allyson, Judy Garland, Van Heflin, Lena Horne, Van Johnson, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Gower Champion, Cyd Charisse, Angela Lansbury. 2:15

[Note: This movie was also in Family Classics Movie Pack. I did not re-review it except to check for picture and sound quality. This is the review from the early viewing, unchanged except to change “$4” to “$2” in light of changing DVD prices.] Astonishingly, MGM failed to renew copyright on this biopic of Jerome Kern, so it’s in the public domain. The bio part is so-so, but the musical numbers are great and the print nearly flawless. The picture is good enough that I tried it on our big TV to verify quality, which turns out to be VHS quality: Soft for a DVD, and the Pause key shows the difference, but still remarkable for the price. And what a lineup of stars, all singing Jerome Kern’s music. $2, easy.

All-American Co-Ed, 1941, b&w, LeRoy Prinz (dir.), Frances Langford, Johnny Downs, Marjorie Woodworth, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Langdon, Alan Hale Jr. 0:53 [0:48].

It’s short for a feature but it’s a charming musical comedy beginning with a drag song-and-dance number (with frat boys from “Quinceton”) and continuing through a simple but well-done plot with enough humor and plenty of music. The print is excellent. Nominated for two Oscars. It’s a Hal Roach film, and I think it’s a keeper. $2.

Hi-de-Ho, 1947, b&w, Josh Binney (dir.), Cab Calloway, Ida James, Jeni Le Gon, the Millers. 1:12 [1:03].

Let’s get the bad parts out of the way first. The plot is minor at best. The acting in the plot portion of the movie isn’t wonderful. One song that does not appear is Minnie the Moocher (but there’s one heck of a Saint James Infirmary). The print, while very good, is not entirely flawless (and apparently missing nine minutes). Then there’s the good news: The plot doesn’t matter, since the bulk of the movie is head-on numbers by Cab Calloway and his remarkable band—although the band isn’t as remarkable as Calloway himself. There are a few other numbers (great tapdancing by the Millers, one or two songs by an unremarkable trio), but mostly there’s a lot of Cab Calloway, and I can’t see asking for much more. What an entertainer! Singing, moving, getting down, scatting… One good Cab Calloway number is worth a quarter extra in almost any film—as with Nat King Cole, Lionel Hampton and Count Basie. A film that’s almost entirely Cab Calloway and band—well, I’m torn between $2 and $2.25. (Hey, with Minnie the Moocher it might get the maximum $2.50.)

Breakfast in Hollywood, 1946, b&w, Harold D. Schuster (dir.), Tom Breneman, Bonita Granville, Billie Burke, Ray Walburn, Zasu Pitts, Hedda Hopper, Spike Jones, Nat ‘King’ Cole. 1:30 [1:27].

The weakest flick on this disc, but that says more about the strength of the first three. “Breakfast in Hollywood” was Tom Breneman’s radio show at his Hollywood restaurant; portions of a supposed episode of the show (and dinnertime entertainment at the restaurant) form the heart of the movie and pretty much all the music. The main plot involves a girl out from Minneapolis on a bus to meet her fiancé, just out of the armed forces—but he’s not there and she runs into another just-released kid at the show, from the same city. Turns out her fiancé got married. The kid falls head over heels for her. She leaves to go back home. Breneman gets involved. There are secondary plots involving Hedda Hopper’s silly hats and a woman who really wants to have the oddest hat at the show because Breneman tries one on and kisses the woman wearing it. There’s more, of course. Well played. Spike Jones, Nat ‘King’ Cole, and some vocalist each get two numbers; it’s great to see Spike Jones in action, and one of Cole’s numbers is an absolutely first-rate blues piece. The negatives: The print’s not in great shape, with damage to the picture and sometimes the sound. Even with damage, this comes in at $1.50.

Rock, Rock, Rock. 1956, b&w, Will Price (dir.), Alan Freed, Tuesday Weld, Teddy Randazzo, The Moonglows, Chuck Berry, The Flamingos, Jimmy Cavallo and the House Rockers, the Johnny Burnette Trio, La Vern Baker, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Cirino and the Bowties. 1:25.

There’s a plot of sorts—Tuesday Weld (age 13, in her first role) needs a prom dress and gets involved in some really bad arithmetic (“one percent of $1 is $1”) to get it, but it all works out. Meanwhile, she and a girlfriend, and her square pipe-smoking dad, watch Alan Freed’s TV show on which her boyfriend shows up as a singer. He manages to get Freed (remember Alan “Payola” Freed?) to bring the whole shebang to the prom. There’s a little more, but it’s mostly an excuse for music and lots of it. The disc sleeve’s a little off: It claims this is in color, but it was filmed in black and white (with no budget, apparently), and it lists Chuck Berry as the star. He does one really great number, but that’s it.

The good: Lots of great music of the times, and to Alan Freed’s credit he didn’t hold with racial boundaries. Chuck Berry’s song is “You Can’t Catch Me,” one of his great car songs. The Moonglows and the Flamingos are wonderful (and do two numbers each, as do most others). Johnny Burnette’s rockabilly trio is interesting. Frankie Lymon is a tiny first-rate pro—even if his second number (“I’m Not a Juvenile Delinquent”) is, well, strange. Tuesday Weld is charming as a beautiful, innocent, well-meaning but slightly dumb teenager (even if “her” two songs are dubbed by Connie Francis). The square father’s strangely amusing.

The not-so-good: One awful female child singer. A few musical acts that could have been replaced with more Berry, Moonglows, Flamingos and Lymon. Mostly, though, the pain of watching Freed clap hands at apparently random intervals (or, in one case, add odd vocal chops to a sax-heavy instrumental) and other cases where the kids (some of whom appear to be in their 30s) clap hands simultaneously—but at intervals that bear no relation to the beat. Strangest case: One where band members are clapping to keep time, but one claps on the downbeat while one claps whenever he feels like it. A cheapie, but with some great music if you can get past Freed and some of the others. As to the IMDB reviews: Most are on the money, but one negative one’s just absurd—and one other negative one manages to place Chubby Checker in this movie, which is simply wrong. $1.25.

King Kelly of the USA, 1934, b&w, Leonard Fields (dir.), Guy Robertson, Edgar Kennedy, Irene Ware, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Franklin Pangborn. 1:06.

As a musical, it’s sort of a flop, although one piece does get used a lot. The print’s dark and damaged, dark enough to be annoying. On the other hand, it’s a pretty good comedy, poking fun at “Ruritania”-style monarchies, show biz and efficiency experts. If it weren’t for the print, I’d give it more than $1.00.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Revue, 1955, b&w, Joseph Kohn (dir.), Nat ‘King’ Cole, Delta Rhythm Boys, Ruth Brown, Willie Bryant, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington, Joe Turner, the Clovers. 0:37.

The two movies on side B—the two “Revues”—are pretty much the same thing, which in these cases is high praise. These appear to be three episodes of a (TV?) show set in the same Harlem theater, with the same host (Willie Bryant) and an incredible variety of music with some dance and comedy thrown in. Both cast lists here are incomplete (Bryant really pushes the acts through one after another). Don’t expect “Rock ‘n’ Roll” but it’s quite a revue nonetheless. The sleeve reverses the timing for this and the next one. The print isn’t great and, unfortunately, the sound is occasionally distorted—but it’s still worth $1, even for what’s basically a half-hour short subject. $1.

Rhythm and Blues Revue, 1955, b&w, Joseph Kohn and Leonard Reed (dir.), Lionel Hampton, The Larks, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Bailey, Count Basie, Joe Turner, Delta Rhythm Boys, Cab Calloway, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Nipsey Russell, Mantan Moreland, Amos Milburn. 1:11

Same setting, same host, but this is two episodes put together (there’s an obvious cut and Bryant welcomes us again halfway through). More music, including Joe Turner’s version of Shake, Rattle and Roll and Cab Calloway’s astonishing Minnie the Moocher. Great stuff throughout, marred only by serious visual damage to much of the print—but the soundtrack’s OK, and that’s what matters. $1.75.

The Great Gabbo, 1929, b&w*, James Cruze (dir.), Erich von Stroheim, Betty Compson, Donald Douglas, Marjorie Kane, Marbeth Wright. 1:32 [1:34].

The * after b&w is for one of the disappointments in this curious film: Portions of the movie are supposed to be in color (“multicolor”), presumably some of the massively staged musical numbers (near the end, we see the marquee noting a cast of 350—I can believe it!). Unfortunately, there’s no color in this print (or, apparently, in any available version). Other disappointments: too many splices and distorted sound in a couple of the big numbers. Otherwise—well, it’s an odd mix of drama and musical, featuring the declining director/actor von Stroheim as an impossibly good ventriloquist (his dummy sings while he’s eating, drinking and smoking) who’s also a harsh egomaniac and abuses his assistant so much that she finally quits (although she still loves Otto, the dummy). Two years later, the Great Gabbo’s a big star in a Broadway show—but the former assistant is also a featured singer/dancer in the show, along with a man who turns out to be her husband. The Great Gabbo wants her back; she tells him the truth; he goes nuts—well, he finishes going nuts, including punching out Otto. It’s an—um—interesting movie. I didn’t pay attention to the year before viewing it; knowing that it’s one of the earliest all-sound movies (and how difficult early sound techniques were), some of the problems with the film (one or two slightly flubbed lines, relatively little camera movement in most of the big musical numbers, exactly one angle for audience reaction shots—or is it the same shot repeated?) are forgivable.

The set of IMDB reviews as of this writing (March 8, 2007) is even more bizarrely varied than usual, including one person who was disappointed because they assumed that all musicals are automatically musical comedies (and this one ain’t no comedy!), one or two who were offended by all that music interrupting von Stroheim’s scenery-chewing, and one who managed to view this as a Communist propaganda film. Right. Watchable enough, and von Stroheim certainly has presence, but I can’t give it more than $1 except maybe as a historic document.

The Dancing Pirate, 1936, b&w*, Lloyd Corrigan (dir.), Charles Collins, Frank Morgan, Steffi Duna, Louis Alberni, Victor Varconi, Jack La Rue, The Royal Cansino Dancers. 1:23.

There’s a fair amount to say about this little gem of a picture—“little” in that it’s not one of the huge music-and-dancing Busby Berkeley or Warner Bros. spectaculars. In addition to the movie as it exists in this set, there’s the movie as it was filmed and some interesting marketing maneuvers. First, the movie. It really is a gem, but as a modest picture with some great dancing—waltz, tap, and glorious Mexican/Spanish ensemble dances. Oh, and two original songs by Rodgers & Hart: The movie isn’t a spectacular, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the real stuff.

The plot’s straightforward. A dance instructor from Boston in 1820 gets shanghaied on to a pirate ship. He manages to escape when the ship’s loading up fresh water in Alta California and intends to go back to Boston—but a shepherd’s spotted the pirate ship, rung the alarm in the little town, and somehow he winds up captured as a pirate (the rest of the pirates sail away, knowing nothing about this). They want to hang him as a pirate, but the alcalde’s daughter wants to learn the waltz; then some soldiers show up—supposedly on the governor’s business (from Monterey) but actually thrown out of the governor’s ranks, and out to seize the alcalde’s lands one way or another. Various hijinks ensue, including a wedding intervention by a nearby band of peaceful Native Americans who are handy with ropes, and of course it all turns out well in the end.

Charles Collins is wonderful (if perhaps a trifle too cheerful in the face of frequent impending death) as the dancing pirate, and boy can he dance. Steffi Duna as the alcalde’s daughter is very good. But do you recognize that second name in the credits? Frank Morgan—the wizard of Oz. He’s remarkable as a frequently bemused alcalde, showing the same mix of bravado and uncertainty as in The Wizard of Oz. I enjoyed it. The print’s pretty good (a little streaking near the end), the sound’s good, I’d watch it again. The ensemble dances in Spanish/Mexican dance outfits are spectacular, partly because they’re not over the top: They’re just dancing in the town square.

The movie as it was filmed? That’s the * after “b&w,” and it’s a disappointment: This was the first dancing musical filmed 100% in Technicolor, as the credits note, and it would be great to see those costumes in color—but this print, apparently like most that are available today, is strictly black & white.

Marketing maneuvers? The jacket shown on IMDB makes this out to be a Rita Hayworth movie. And apparently she’s in the movie—but not in the credits. For good reason. She was 18 years old at the time, and in this as in fourteen 1935-1937 movies, she’s either uncredited or credited as Rita Cansino, sometimes part of the Dancing Cansinos or Royal Cansinos. You’d have to know what she looked like at 18 and look very closely to spot her in the big dance scenes; I certainly didn’t spot her. (And Mill Creek doesn’t credit her, appropriately.) If you read the full set of IMDB and Amazon user reviews, be aware that they’re reviewing several different versions (apparently there is or was a color VHS release at some point—I’d love to see this in color!) and that, as usual, some of them bring their preconceptions to the table. In my case, I’ll just say that I think Collins did a fine job all around, Morgan was amusing, the story was fun and didn’t strike me as outlandish. Even deducting a little for the missing color, this gets $1.50.

Road Show, 1941, b&w, Hal Roach (dir.), Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis, John Hubbard, Charles Butterworth, Patsy Kelly, Shemp Howard, The Charioteers. 1:27.

This and the other film on Side B don’t really qualify as musicals (each has two or three musical numbers within a dense plot)—but they’re both delightful screwball comedies. This one has a rich bachelor who winds up in an insane asylum thanks to his fiancée, meets “certified lunatic” and joyful eccentric Col. Carlton Carroway (Menjou)—who checks himself in and out of the hospital from time to time, escapes and winds up with a traveling carnival. There’s more to the plot, of course; it’s classic screwball comedy, expertly done and thoroughly enjoyable. Very good print, good sound, just plain enjoyable even if it doesn’t really belong in this set. $2.

Hi Diddle Diddle, 1943, b&w, Andrew L. Stone (dir.), Adolphe Menjou, Martha Scott, Pola Negri, Dennis O’Keefe, Billie Burke, June Havoc. 1:12.

This time, Menjou’s a not-very-successful con man married to a Wagnerian opera singer (Negri); his son (O’Keefe) (who she doesn’t know about) is a sailor, marrying a woman during his three day shore leave. The bride’s ex-boyfriend thinks the sailor’s a golddigger and tells him that the mother’s lost all her money (due to his deliberate scheming and crooked gambling)—but the sailor doesn’t care, and the marriage commences. They want to go on a brief honeymoon, but this is a screwball comedy… Good running gags (one of which, a beautiful woman who keeps showing up in different scenes and apparently different minor roles, blatantly opens the fourth wall as a lead character mentions that she’s a relative or friend of the producer); a remarkable sequence in which four people at a nightclub practice doubletakes (causing the bartender watching them to do a classic doubletake). The print’s not quite as good as Road Show; the musical numbers are fine (one of them really excellent) but two songs do not a musical make; but as a screwball comedy, this is a fine little movie. $1.50, lowered for some damaged sections.

Second Chorus, 1940, b&w, H.C. Potter (dir.), Fred Astaire, Paulette Goddard, Artie Shaw, Charles Butterworth, Burgess Meredith. 1:24.

The timeless Fred Astaire and a very young Burgess Meredith as two “friendly”-rival musicians who’ve managed to stay in college, running a collegiate band, for seven years. They hire a gorgeous (and very effective) manager, somehow both graduate, and both try to get into Artie Shaw’s band, sabotaging each other along the way. Some slapstick, decent plot, lots of Shaw’s music and some other good numbers, and there’s a little dancing in there too. $1.50.

Trocadero, 1944, b&w, William Nigh (dir.), Rosemary Lane, Johnny Downs, Ralph Morgan, Sheldon Leonard, Marjorie Manners, Cliff Nazarro. 1:14 [1:08]

This one has an actual plot, albeit told entirely in flashbacks. Tony Rocadero leaves his restaurant/night club to his (adopted?) kids, who have trouble making a go of it. But they get some good advice and book some newer jazz/swing performers. Along the way, just as they’re about to shut down, one who has his eyes on the woman manager offers to finance a rebuilding and wants a bigger, fancier sign with hotter name—and Tony Rocadero’s becomes the Trocadero. Interesting variety of music, but this one’s as much plot as it is musical. Downgraded for soundtrack problems. $1.25.

People Are Funny, 1946, b&w, Sam White (dir.), Jack Haley, Helen Walker, Rudy Vallee, Ozzie Nelson, Art Linkletter, Frances Langford. 1:33 [1:27].

Another “friendly” rivals situation, with two radio producers (Nelson one of them) trying to sell a show to a grumbly sponsor (Vallee, who sings once), both trying to work from a premise involving the ordinary folks in a small town. After various hijinks, “People are Funny” is born. Running gag with one musical group that keeps trying to audition for one producer—unfortunately, once in blackface. Decent plot, decent music, nothing special. I wonder what’s in the missing six minutes… $1.25.

Doll Face, 1945, b&w, Lewis Seiler (dir.), Vivian Blaine, Dennis O’Keefe, Perry Como, Carmen Miranda, Martha Stewart. 1:20 [1:18].

Let’s see: A musical based on a play written by Gypsy Rose Lee, telling the story of a burlesque star who writes a book (or, rather, works with a ghostwriter, thus establishing romantic tension with her producer/manager/boyfriend O’Keefe) to show she’s classy enough for the legit stage—and winds up doing a Broadway show based on the story she wrote. Self-referential as all get out, and well done to boot. (Carmen Miranda’s character makes a deprecating joke when someone compares her to Carmen Miranda…) Good musical numbers including some fully-staged showpieces. Obvious missing frames and bad cuts lower this to $1.25.

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large, volume 7, issue 3, March 2007, is now available for downloading.

The 24-page issue, PDF as always, but HTML separates of some, not all, essays are available from the home page includes:

• Bibs & Blather – Who’s out there, another language grump, and a reason for the peculiar issue.
• Old Media/New Media – Music and video
• Trends & Quick Takes – Five trends and seven quicker takes
• Net Media Perspective: Wikipedia Revisited
• My Back Pages – ten snarky little pieces.

Delightfully Dangerous, 1945, b&w, Arthur Lubin (dir.), Jane Powell, Ralph Bellamy, Constance Moore, Morton Gould and his orchestra, Arthur Treacher. 1:32. [1:30]

15-year-old Cheryl (Jane Powell) is a music student who wants to make it in theater—just like her older sister (Moore). Turns out Moore’s really a burlesque performer. Cheryl pays a surprise visit to New York. Hijinks ensue. Good musical numbers, decent plot, fine performances by all concerned—but there’s some distortion in the sound track for the first half, unfortunate for a musical. That brings it down to $1.25.

Private Buckaroo, 1942, b&w, Edward F. Cline (dir.), the Andrews Sisters, Dick Foran, Joe E. Lewis, Shemp Howard, Harry James, Donald O’Connor, Huntz Hall, Mary Wilkes, Ernest Treux. 1:08.

Shemp Howard was much better on his own than as part of the Three Stooges, in my opinion, and he shines in this wartime flick as a sergeant who has trouble with his supposed girlfriend. The real plot: Harry James gets drafted and his group all enlist to stay with their leader. There’s another draftee who’s not willing to obey orders. The plot makes as much sense as any of these war-promotion flicks, and there’s a great running gag: Harry James, an amazing trumpeter, can’t get the hang of the Army bugle. The middle Andrews Sister is a bit much for my taste, but overall there’s good non-slapstick comedy, great music, and a generally decent print. $1.50.

Stage Door Canteen, 1943, b&w, Frank Borzage (dir.), Judith Anderson, Tallulah Bankhead, Ralph Bellamy, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Ray Bolger, Katharine Cornell, Gracie Fields, Lynn Fontanne, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Hersholt, George Jessel, Gypsy Rose Lee, Alfred Lunt, Harpo Marx, Elsa Maxwell, Yehudi Menuhin, Ethel Merman, Paul Muni, Merle Oberon, George Raft, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Ethel Waters, Johnny Weissmuller, Ed Wynn, William Demarest, Count Basie, Xavier Cugat, Benny Goodman, Kay Kyser, Guy Lombardo and many more stars of stage and screen (I’m not kidding…Peggy Lee doesn’t even get a credit). 2:12 [1:52]

First the bad news: The print isn’t as good as it might be (some ghost images), although the soundtrack’s fine—and apparently a few minutes are missing. Oh, and the plot’s not compelling. But the plot’s mostly a way to show off an astonishing cavalcade of stars, either performing on stage or acting as waiters and the like—just like the real Stage Door Canteen and Hollywood Canteen (although it’s hard to believe they got quite such an impressive concentration every night). If you know stage, screen and music of the 1940s, there’s probably another 30 people I should have listed here. Supposedly, this is Katharine Cornell’s only screen appearance (a cameo). Katharine Hepburn singing The Lord’s Prayer (very well). Yehudi Menuhin playing two numbers, one of them Flight of the Bumble Bee. Benny Goodman playing clarinet like he invented it. And so much more. Thoroughly enjoyable, wartime propaganda and all. Even with a second-rate print, this gets $2.25.

Career Girl, 1944, b&w, Wallace Fox (dir.), Frances Langford, Edward Norris, Iris Adrian, Craig Woods. 1:09. [1:07]

Three out of four ain’t bad. This is the fourth. Traditional “girl from the Midwest goes to New York to make it big on Broadway, gets her heart broken, but it works out” story, with a wealthy fiancée back home who wants her to settle down and be Mrs. Mine-manager and a theatrical boarding house full of women who keep her from giving in. There aren’t many musical numbers and they aren’t all that great; the plot doesn’t really reach resolution; but worst of all, the soundtrack’s distorted enough that the musical numbers are mildly painful. Being generous, $0.75.