Walt at Random

This one’s a real question, specifically to readers who:

• Have LCD HDTVs with 120Hz or 240Hz refresh rate and the option of interpolating new frames (which can go by any number of “smooth” or “blur-resisting” or similar names).
• Actually watch HDTV movies, preferably from Blu-ray but maybe even upconverted from DVD.

Here’s the question or questions:

• Do you use the frame-interpolation option?
• If you’re a movie buff, do you find that its “video-like” look harms your appreciation of the movie?

Here’s the thing. We don’t have an HDTV yet. When we get one, it will almost certainly be an LED-backlit LCD model, which also means it will almost certainly have at least a real 120Hz refresh rate (and either a 240Hz rate or the “pseudo-240″ fast-switching backlighting option).

The home theater/av magazines I read mostly have reviewers who believe that the judder in film–the fact that, at 24 frames per second, film action isn’t actually smooth (you’re seeing the flicker, at least subconsciously)–is what makes it film: That smoothing out that judder by adding interpolated frames somehow damages the flick, turning it into video.

That’s not a universal view–and I’m less than fully convinced that every director and director of photography really *wants* a flickery movie. Sometimes, yes–I believe that Woody Allen’s b&w films are probably intended to be seen with all the flicker of the original. But many times, I suspect, the director and DP deal with what’s feasible. I feel the same way about the notion that, in all pictures (as opposed to certain stylized pictures), the grain of the film should be visible.

So: How about you? I haven’t actually had the chance to make the decision yet. If (when) I do, I’ll try it both ways on a variety of flicks…but I’d love to gain the experience of those who’re already there.

Oh: If you’re thinking of giving me a sermon on how the creator’s work must be honored, don’t bother–unless you can prove to me that all those directors viewed judder as a positive, not simply the reality of film-based moviemaking. Just say “I would never use the smoothing feature on movies” and let it go at that.

Death Rides a Horse (orig. Da uomo a uomo or “From man to man,” a much better title), 1967, color. Giulio Petroni (dir.), Lee Van Cleef, John Phillip Law, Mario Brega, Luigi Pistilli, Anthony Dawson. 1:54.

Remember the blue-eyed blind angel in Barbarella? What if he was a 21-year-old whose family was slaughtered (after his mom and older sister were raped) and house burned down 15 years earlier by a truly evil gang—one of whom saved him from the fire? And he became a crack shot, presumably planning revenge sometimes? Now mix in the ever-stoic, ever-slightly-sardonic Lee Van Cleef as an outlaw just emerging from prison after a 15-year sentence, after he’d been sold out by the gang he thought he was part of—and he finds that some of the gang members are now Highly Respected Citizens. Throw in a Morricone score with singing that’s either supposed to be incoherent or is marred by a poor soundtrack—oh, and a Mexican village so suppressed by an outlaw gang that they won’t even rise up against four of the gang left to guard a million-dollar theft.

There you have it: The seeds for a movie that combines vengeance and revenge, generational (and style) conflicts (Ryan, Van Cleef’s character, calls Bill, the younger one “kid”; “Grandpa” is the responding epithet), suppressed memory, lots of trick gunplay and not-so-trick gunbattles, truly bad bad guys and the gray Ryan and more. Law does a fine job as a hate-filled but naïve young sharpshooter; Van Cleef is, well, Van Cleef (after just two movies, I see why spaghetti western aficionados hold him in high regard.) It’s a solid spaghetti western, the print’s generally fine, and even with the muddy score I’ll give it $1.50.

Sundance and the Kid (orig. Vivi o, preferibilmente, morti or “Alive or Preferably Dead,”), 1969, color. Duccio Tessari (dir.), Giuliano Gemma, Nino Benvenuti, Sydne Rome. 1:43 [1:23].

Is there a theme here? First movie on a disc is a first-rate spaghetti western—and the second one is something else entirely. This time, the “something else” is tolerable, but maybe tries too hard, beginning with the on-screen title, “Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid.”

It’s a comedy/slapstick Western, and that’s a tough genre to bring off if you’re not Mel Brooks. The setup is that one of two brothers, a city slicker/gambler, finds the other—because they’re set to inherit $300,000 if and only if they live together peaceably for six months. The other brother, a down-to-earth Westerner (the time’s a little indistinct, but the first brother arrives in an early automobile), really wants nothing to do with it. And on the first evening, a huge bandit ring shows up, steals the horses and burns down the ranchhouse because the city brother challenges the theft.

Oh yes: Before that, the city brother’s had an encounter with an apparently down-on-his-luck gambler who’s “lost it all”—and after suggesting a friendly game, next thing we know the gambler owns the car (he later becomes the agent or coconspirator of the brothers). The brothers become wholly incompetent outlaws; there’s a kidnapping where the father really doesn’t want the daughter returned, which allows for romantic stuff; and there’s lots more. Oh, there’s also a score that uses kazoos heavily and has songs that comment directly on the plot (but the sound’s sometimes a little distorted to make sense of the lyrics).

Interesting details (along with the real title) at IMDB: the on-screen credits have good “American” names for the leads—e.g. Gemma’s billed as “John Wade” and Benevenuti as “Robert Neuman—and that includes renaming Sydne Rome (the heroine) “Karen Blake,” which is interesting because she hails from Akron, Ohio and Sydne Rome is her real name. Not terrible, but not terribly funny either. Maybe the missing 20 minutes would help? All things considered, it barely rises to $1.00.

Grand Duel (Il grande duello), 1972, color. Giancarlo Santi (dir.), Lee Van Cleef, Alberto Dentice/Peter O’Brien, Jess Hahn, Horst Frank, Klaus Grünberg, Antonio Casale, Marc Mazza, Dominique Darel. 1:38.

Here’s a true oddity—not necessarily the picture (which is a good spaghetti western) but the situation with Mill Creek. That is: I saw Grand Duel in late 2008, as part of the Classic Western set (see C&I October 2008). I gave it a so-so $1.00 rating.

But this isn’t the same print—not by a long shot. That one was full-screen; this one’s wide-screen. That one was missing 10 minutes or so; this one’s nearly full length. (Don’t expect miracles: It’s still VHS-quality at best, which is all you’re going to get with four films on one double-density/single-sided DVD under any circumstances.) And, maybe, I’m a little more attuned to the qualities of spaghetti Westerns and, particularly, Lee Van Cleef.

Anyway…the plot’s too complicated to summarize, but it involves an (ex-)sheriff (Van Cleef), a condemned (but innocent) murderer who has to be the most acrobatic sharpshooter I’ve ever seen (although Van Cleef’s the fastest gun in the state, the younger guy’s definitely the most nimble), a truly evil clan who slaughter the innocent and rule a town (with their name), the mystery of who really shot “the patriarch” of the clan and a “grand duel” that runs about three minutes and may be the least interesting part of the flick, even if it is the climax.

Somehow, it all seemed more logical and interesting than last time around. The flashbacks made more sense. The dialogue ranged from not bad to fairly tasty. Great scenery, good production values. (The film was coproduced by companies from Italy, France, Morocco and Germany.) Despite an absurdly large body count (but it becomes Movie Violence) and a lovingly-filmed massacre of innocents that seemed more brutal than really needed, I found it enjoyable, and give it an easy $1.25. (Lower the innocent body count, or at least don’t show it so vividly, and it gets $1.50.)

Twice a Judas (orig. Due volte Giuda), 1969, color. Nando Cicero (dir.), Klaus Kinski, Antonio Sabato, Cristina Galbo, Jose Calvo, Emma Baron. 1:32.

This one might have been better if presented widescreen (the movie itself was very widescreen), since it seems to be more “cropped & chopped” than panned & scanned, with some really awkward scenes resulting. It’s awkward in several other ways as well, including a beginning that’s never really explained and a situation pitting one set of bad guys against another force that’s pretty obviously bad, even if briefly semi-sympathetic. It’s also a movie that seems to view valiant Confederate fighters as noble, but overrun by those villainous Union soldiers and their murderous ways.

I’m not sure I can really summarize the plot, but it involves one long-lost brother who’s hired to kill his older brother, gets amnesia along the way as a result of an unexplained shooting, and at the last minute prevents the killing. There’s a drunken doctor, a sympathetic lady of negotiable virtue, a sheriff who really does seem to be favoring neither side and a banker who may or may not be evil.

Unfortunately, it’s sort of a mess. In the end, I found it brutal and incoherent and worth, at best, $0.75.

I was going to write a series of posts describing each essay in the current Cites & Insights, and still plan to do so.
But this hit me by surprise–a LISNews item pointing to a makeuseof.com post pointing to Blind Search.

Blind Search?

People who care deeply about open web search engines spend a lot of time figuring out which engine is better for which purposes. For most users, though–at least the minority who appear to be aware that Google’s not the only game in town–the look and feel of a site may be as important as the apparent results.
Blind Search takes that away, at least for three major open web search engines. You type in a search. You get back the first 10 results for each of three search engines, displayed in three parallel columns. You click on one of three “vote for this search engine” buttons, based on the column of results that seem to match your query best.
Then, and only then, Blind Search shows you the engine used for each column.

Maybe both

I try to rotate searches to some extent. My FireFox search box includes several major engines along with some specialized tools (WorldCat.org, IMDB, Citizendium, that other web encyclopedia). But, yeah, I probably use Google more than the others…
So this morning I tried some searches at Blind Search. An ego search (oh, come on, you don’t do ego searches?). A semi-ego search, “Cites & Insights.”
While the results were similar (as you’d expect), the same engine seemed to yield the best spread of first-ten results in both cases.
I just now tried it on ScienceBlogs. The same engine seemed to yield a slightly better set of results than the other two (a small difference).
A silly search (memory of water). Hmm. One engine was just a little better.
By now, you’ve probably guessed the engine that came out “best” in the first few tests–and it certainly isn’t what I’d expect.
Maybe bing is on to something.
(Or maybe not. The more searches I try, the more diffuse the results. Still…)

What’s new at the Library Leadership Network?

New and updated articles

• Unconference philosophy and issues brings together old and new commentaries on the philosophy behind unconferences and library camps, and some of the controversies with these innovative conferences, with some material moved from Unconferences and library camps.
• There’s new material in Unconference and library camp practices.
• We’ve also added Unconferences in practice: Notes and resources for longer commentaries on specific unconferences and links to external resources. The article begins with notes from Library Camp Kansas, Library Camp of the West and the One Big Library unconference.
• Organization and transformation now includes more notes on “network management” and Gary Hamel’s generational generalizations in “The Facebook generation vs. the Fortune 500.”

Leader’s Digest

• “Information visualization: The next frontier?” discusses a range of techniques that can clarify complex information when used appropriately.
• “More searchable geodata with new Google API” is about Google’s decision to support more location-based services.
• Have you been assured over the years that all good work is teamwork? Now we read “Why teams don’t work” with some tips for coping with this “worst option for tackling a difficult task.”
• “CERN’s collaborative management model” may be a useful example for other organizations.

You’ll find all of May’s Leader’s Digest items, in their entirety, in Leader’s Digest May 2009–until those items are dispersed into other articles.

Quick take

This week’s Quick take–which might be next week’s as well–is “Confessions of a library user,” a pseudonymous commentary on how a lapsed public library user came back to the fold.

This four-disc DVD set is part of Mill Creek’s “Legends Series” and also a 20-movie pack. In this case, that means 18 early Alfred Hitchcock movies, all b&w, including six silents, and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But there’s an extra: 55 minutes of trailers from movies throughout Hitchcock’s career. This isn’t some beautifully-remastered retrospective—but you’re getting 18 movies, two TV episodes and an hour of trailers for $8.50 or so. As with some other newish Mill Creek sets, this one uses double-layer single-sided discs rather than double-sided single-layer discs, so the labels are a lot easier to read.

Disc 1

Starting the first disc, I see significant upgrades in the presentation. The menu is DVD-like, not stills with menu. Alfred Hitchcock directed all of these, so I don’t repeat that.

The Lady Vanishes, 1938, b&w. Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty, Cecil Parker, Linden Travers, Basil Radford, Mary Clare, Emile Boreo. 1:37.

What a start for a set! I’d only vaguely heard of this first-rate movie before.

The movie begins in some Central European hotel, where too many people are stuck because the train’s snowed in. Lots of comedy with two stuffy English types forced to share the maid’s room, three apparently-wealthy young women having a final get-together before one of them goes off to marry someone with title and money who she may not love, and a young man rehearsing some heavy-footed folk dancers in the floor over the young woman’s room. Oh, and the former nanny for some children, headed back to England.

Next day, they all head for the train—but the nanny’s mislaid a bag and the young woman helps her out. In the process, a flowerbox pushed off a ledge from above, and quite clearly intended for the nanny, strikes the young woman on the head, not quite knocking her out…but she’s swooning as the train pulls away. She and the nanny find themselves sharing a first-class compartment with an Italian couple and a stern older woman; at one point, the two go off to have tea, using a special tea the nanny carries with her, and there’s interaction with the Britishers.

All of which is just setup—because when the young woman wakes from a nap, the nanny’s gone. And everybody says she was never there.

Well now. What a start for an intriguing plot, enriched by a psychiatrist on the train (picking up a patient at the next station to take to a hospital), the young man’s presence in the crowded, smoky coach car, and lots more. Throw in a nun in high heels, magic boxes, adultery, two people who think cricket is more important than possible abduction, international intrigue… The plot turns out to be intricate, confusing, suspenseful, enriched with humor and the kind of thing that really needs a master director—which, fortunately, it has. There’s even a little romance.

Any time I feel the need to watch the last quarter of a movie on our regular TV because I’m too intrigued to wait another day, I know I’ve got a winner. In this case, the story’s interesting, the direction is…well, Hitchcock, the acting is good, the photography is…well, again, Hitchcock. Great stuff, pretty much a masterpiece and enormously entertaining. Oh, and the print’s about as good as “VHS-quality” ever gets. A winner and a classic: As good as they get. An easy $2.50.

The Farmer’s Wife, 1928, b&w, silent (with music). Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis, Gordon Harker, Ruth Maitland. 2:09.

Hitchcock wasn’t always devoted to suspense, not even suspense-crosses such as The Lady Vanishes. This early silent (with music that’s at least partly specific to the movie, since the only vocal portion, a men’s chorus, arrives at the point that a male glee club is starting up in the movie) is pure comedy—a cross between romantic comedy and British rural comedy.

Here’s the plot, in its entirety. A farmer—that is, the master of the farm—is a widower. After his daughter weds (some years later?), he decides he should marry again. With the help of his housekeeper, an attractive younger woman who’s intelligent and has a good personality, he draws up a list of possibilities. Then he goes after each one—basically arriving at their doorstep (or in one case confronting them during a party at another previous possibility’s house), saying he wants to get married again, and telling them they’re the one. Maybe a trifle more of an actual request, but not much. He gets turned down, in some cases with laughter, in one with a hysterical fit (after he says something mean about the woman after she rejects him). Finally, dejected, he comes to realize that he should have been looking closer to home…and finds his wife. (Who, notably, is by far the prettiest, nicest and most suitable of the lot.)

That’s it. Oh, there’s lots of mild comedy turns along the way, including an extended party sequence involving his handyman, who he’s loaned to one of his potential mates to announce people at her party—and the outfit the farmhand’s required to wear, with pants that he can’t close and is holding up all the time. But that’s it. You’ve just read the entire plot, spoilers and all.

I like the more natural pacing of some older movies. I’m not quite sure that this story is enough to hold up for more than two hours, even with Jameson Thomas’ remarkable facial expressions. It’s one of those silents where I wonder whether sight-readers would get a lot more dialogue—or whether all that stuff that doesn’t show up on cards is just nonsense. (One IMDB review says this version was recorded at “the wrong speed,” but that seems unlikely given the natural pace of everything in the film. I should learn never to pay any attention to IMDB reviews…)

Well-directed, to be sure, also well photographed, well acted and generally a good print. But it’s a bit slight to get more than $1.50.

The Manxman, 1929, b&w, silent (orchestral score, not apparently related). Carl Brisson, Malcolm Keen, Anny Ondra, Randle Ayrton. 1:30.

A fisherman on the Isle of Man is best friends with a rising young barrister—and is wooing a barmaid, but her father forbids that because he’s poor. So he goes off to Africa to seek his fortune, telling the barrister to take care of her in the meantime. Which the barrister does, with predictable results—especially once they get a telegram saying the fisherman’s dead.

Well, he’s not. He comes back with his fortune. He marries the young woman (apparently she’s to gutless to say she doesn’t love him, or maybe that’s Just Not Done on the Isle of Man), who turns out to be expecting, albeit not with his child. Some time after the child is born, she leaves and convinces the barrister—on the road to becoming Deemster, which is apparently what the magistrate is called on the Isle of Man—to hide her away. But she pines for more affection, tells the Deemster he has to make a choice, and goes off to take the child away from the fisherman. Who won’t give up the child.

She jumps into the ocean, but is saved—and shows up in court (on the Deemster’s first official day) on the minor charge of attempted suicide. The fisherman also shows up…and the father finally figures out what’s going on. As you might expect, there is no happy ending.

Or maybe that was all that was happening. This silent really requires you to read lips to get much out of it, with titles few and far between. The leads all seem to emote mostly with their eyes, and the barrister and woman both seem perpetually semi-hysterical. I think this is one primarily for Hitchcock completists; it’s not terrible, but it doesn’t have a lot to recommend it. $1.00.

The Cheney Vase (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), 1955, b&w. Darren McGavin, Carolyn Jones, Patricia Collinge, Ruta Lee. 0:25.

Remember when half-hour TV shows actually had 25 minutes and 30 seconds of show? In the case of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, that seems to means a 22-minute pocket drama and lots of time for Hitchcock to do his schtick before and after.

A ne’er-do-well gets canned from his job at a museum and, using a forged letter of recommendation (his girlfriend is the museum head’s secretary), gets a job caring for a disabled elderly art patron and amateur artist—who has The Cheney Vase, which the museum (and a shady German art dealer) wants to buy. He figures he can nab the vase, sell it and take off…and for some reason feels he needs to isolate the woman while trying to find it.

There is, as you might expect, a twist.

Darren McGavin is good in the role, but despite Hitchcock and “golden age” credentials, I thought this was pretty ordinary stuff. The print’s decent. Given that it’s less than half an hour, I’d never give it more than $0.75 unless it was a masterpiece; being generous, I’ll say $0.35.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), 1962, b&w. Diana Dors, Brandon De Wilde, David J. Stewart. 0:25

A carnival magician with a devilish appearance steps out of his trailer and sees a person sprawled unconscious over a grating—and discovers it’s not a drunken bum but a sick teenager. Rescued, the teen turns out to be an escapee from some institution, a little simple-minded. He thinks the magician is the devil and his wife (and assistant, in the usual short outfit) is an angel.

She’s no angel; she’s carrying on with a highwire man (and the kid sees them together, but he’s extremely gullible, so…). He watches the magic act and is terrified when the magician’s sawing her in half. Later, she confides to him that the magician really is the devil and that the magic’s in the wand (two conflicting notions, but…). Somehow, this is enough to convince him to kill the magician—and, in what ensues, leave the boyfriend passed out, drunk, in the magician’s trailer, and, eventually, well, if the assistant in the saw trick is unconscious…

There have been many nasty little stories based on the sawing-the-woman-in-half trick. This is one of them. Yes, Robert Bloch wrote it; yes, it’s Hitchcock. But it’s basically a nasty little piece of work. Give the show’s sponsor credit: This episode was deemed unsuitable and never shown as part of the series (until syndication). It should have stayed lost. Not worth a dime, and a blemish on the disc.

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Note: A briefly-present comment, deleted because it makes claims that are legally actionable, may be based on a misunderstanding.

Clearly, much of what Mill Creek Entertainment releases is in the public domain, and I give them credit for mining the public domain in a way that makes items readily accessible. But it’s also 100% clear that never, in any of its materials, does Mill Creek Entertainment assert that everything they release is in the public domain. All of the DVDs include the standard copyright warning (also on the boxes in many cases), and it’s fairly clear that some items from Mill Creek are not from PD materials.

Speak Easily, 1932, b&w. Edward Sedgwick (dir.), Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, Ruth Selwyn, Thelma Todd, Hedda Hopper, Sidney Toler. 1:22.

Buster Keaton—but this time in a full-length sound movie (another Buster Keaton Production). He’s a professor, Professor Potts, living a sheltered life and without enough savings to broaden his horizons. He gets a letter saying he’s inherited a fortune and takes off (although the letter’s actually a phony from Potts’ assistant/colleague, designed to get him to take a vacation).

He encounters a truly awful theatrical group, led by Jimmy Durante, and falls for one of its players. With his fortune backing it, the group goes to Broadway. There’s a fair amount of Keaton’s physical comedy and fish-out-of-water character throughout, including Potts’ first encounter with alcohol—and it all winds up in a remarkable 15-minute theatrical sequence, physical comedy of the highest order as the Professor unintentionally converts the sad-sack show into a hit comedy.

All in all, an enjoyable movie, and the last scenes are both funny and well-played. The print and sound track are both fairly good (with a few flaws). $1.75.

Li’l Abner, 1940, b&w. Albert S. Rogell (dir.), Jeff York, Martha O’Driscoll, Mona Ray, Buster Keaton, Edgar Kennedy, Doodles Weaver. 1:18 [1:10].

Some IMDB reviewers felt that Speak Easily was an atrocity as a Buster Keaton movie. I disagree. I’m guessing they haven’t seen this—which, if viewed as a “Buster Keaton movie” (the sleeve lists him as the star), really is an atrocity. He plays Lonesome Polecat, a local Indian (I guess)…and about the best you can say is that he’s only in the movie for a few minutes, and at least he doesn’t have to deal with phony bugeyes, like Pansy ‘Mammy’ Yokum does, or false noses and other absurd prostheses like many other characters.

OK, it’s a comic strip movie. I get that. They do use makeup and whatever to make it look as much like the comic strip as possible—to the point of silliness. And, like some other comic strip movies, it’s…well, just not very funny, unless you’re enormously fond of Appalachian stereotypes. I’ll admit I was never a diehard Li”l Abner fan (actually, I don’t think any local paper ran the strip); maybe if I was, I’d love this flick. Maybe the missing eight minutes are wonderful. As it is…well, the print’s not too bad, so I’ll give it a reluctant $0.75.

It’s a Joke Son, 1947, b&w. Benjamin Stoloff (dir.), Kenny Delmar, Una Merkel, June Lockhart, Kenneth Farrell, Douglass Dumbrille. 1:03.

This movie features a self-caricature, Senator Beauregard Claghorn, a Southern gentleman who hates even the word North and who orates a fine bold streak—but who’s also totally under his wife’s thumb. It also involves a teetotaling Southern ladies’ club and the effects when Claghorn mixes up the grape punch—aided by a little boy who doesn’t really read and pours in several different bottles of “grape juice”—all of it highly alcoholic. The main plots are the relationship between his daughter (a lovely June Lockhart) and her beau, who Mrs. Claghorn doesn’t think is good enough for the daughter (but who he rather takes a liking to), money from his mint farm, and a race for the State Senate in which the incumbent is an old fool totally in the pocket of a gang and Mrs. Claghorn is put up for election by the ladies’ club.

Thing is, it’s funny. Claghorn thinks North Carolina should be Upper South Carolina; he still buys Confederate Victory Bonds. (He’s slender, well-spoken and fairly good looking; this isn’t playing on physical stereotypes. There are also no racial issues involved in the movie.) The title comes from Claghorn’s line whenever he says something, I say, says something he deems funny and gets the usual silent response. The acting suits the movie, the action is internally consistent, it moves right along. The 22-year-old June Lockhart is simply stunning and also good in her role (but then, isn’t she always?). (The Claghorn character as played by Kenny Delmar was a regular on the Fred Allen radio show. The Warner Bros. cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn was a takeoff on Claghorn.) The print and soundtrack are both fine. Since it’s just over an hour, I won’t give it more than $1.25.

Zis Boom Bah, 1941, b&w. William Nigh (dir.), Grace Hayes, Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy, Benny Rubin, Richard Gallagher, Roland Dupree, Huntz Hall. 1:01.

This one’s tough. On one hand, it’s a charming one-hour movie about college, family, song & dance, and kids redeeming themselves—and it has some characters playing themselves. The basic plot: A successful singer whose son (under another name and being raised by his grandfather) is attending college on her dime looks into how it’s going, finds the son is a spoiled young man and the college is in trouble, and cuts off his allowance. She buys the local student hangout (there’s some funny stuff here) and, through various means, winds up somehow saving the college and its football team and turning all the spoiled kids into polished entertainers.

So far so good. Decent print. Decent sound—with one big and, in this case, nearly fatal exception: Whenever there’s music, it’s distorted enough that it’s painful. In a movie that relies heavily on musical numbers, including most of the last quarter of the film, that’s a pretty serious flaw. With it, I can’t give this more than $0.75.

East Side Kids, 1940, b&w. Robert F. Hill (dir.), Leon Ames, Dennis Moore, Joyce Bryant, Hal Chester, Harris Berger, FrankieBurke, Dave O’Brien. 1:02 {1:00].

Now I remember one reason I put off buying this set: It has at least five movies with the East Side Kids, and I thought three such flicks in the Family Classics set was at least two too many. We shall see; it looks as though the name East Side Kids covered a lot of different casts.

In this case, there’s the bad-kid-turned-good-cop bit, with him opening up a club to keep the gang off the street—but his friend’s facing execution for something he didn’t do, and if that happens, some of the kids will be completely lost. Meanwhile, there’s another nogoodnik acquaintance involved with a counterfeiting ring. At one point, the copy himself is the suspect.

I guess it’s all vintage East Side Kids—but it’s before Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall and is better than the others I’ve seen. On the other hand, it wasn’t particularly funny. Judged as a comedy, I’m not sure it would get any score at all. Judged as a one-hour flick on its own merits—well, the print’s OK. Being very generous and assuming some folks just love the East Side Kids, $0.75.

Indiscreet, 1931, b&w. Leo McCarey (dir.), Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, Monroe Owsley, Barbara Kent, Arthur Lake, Maude Eburne. 1:32 [1:13]

I’m of two minds on this one. On the one hand, it’s a nicely done romantic comedy with some remarkable comedic turns by Gloria Swanson (particularly when she demonstrates the “slight touch of insanity” in her family), a satisfying overall plot and generally solid acting. Yes, there’s some uneasiness between melodrama and comedy, and the occasional songs seem out of place—but it was fun overall.

On the other, the soundtrack’s sometimes damaged enough to be really annoying, and once in a while there’s visible damage as well. The missing 19 minutes would probably improve the movie.

Overall, it’s a good romantic comedy undone by the print quality, yielding $1.25.

Chandu on the Magic Island, 1935, b&w. Ray Taylor (dir.), Bela Lugosi, Maria Alba. 1:10 [1:06].

This is apparently a sequel to some other movie or movies (or recut episodes of a serial) with Bela Lugosi as Frank Chandler, aka Chandu the Magician. This one involves a Princess Nadji, a yacht, evil crewmen, the lost island of Lemuria, some dark-magic cat-worshiping religion and a proposed sacrifice to reanimate a dead ruler.

I could say that the print’s damaged in some parts and the sound’s questionable. Both of those are true—but I don’t think seeing this one in vivid Technicolor with crystal-clear surround sound and on a big screen would help. It struck me as incoherent even by the standards of Z mystic-”scifi” flicks. (There’s no science here, but plenty of fiction.) My charitable quick review: An awful mess, but devoted fans of Bela Lugosi might find something to like. For that, I’ll give a reluctant $0.50.

Hell’s House, 1932, b&w, Howard Higgin (dir.), Bette Davis, Pat O’Brien, Junior Durkin. 1:12.

Rural kid sees his mother get run over by a car (driver gets out, looks at victim, drives away; kid makes no move to remember license plate or, apparently, call authorities). Next scene: Kid shows up at urban home of aunt & uncle, who have a boarder who acts like a hotshot—and the uncle’s out of work. Next scene: Kid asks hotshot if he knows of a job; hotshot, who’s actually a bootlegger, hires kid to take phone calls but never say who he works for or where he lives. Next scene—this movie moves fast—cops show up, kid won’t talk, kid gets sent to reformatory for three years.

Then there’s a bunch of reformatory stuff, with a side plot of newspaper reporter trying to blow the lid off the terrible conditions there but not getting cooperation. Kid’s best buddy, another kid with a heart condition, tries to smuggle letter out for kid, gets caught, won’t snitch, goes to solitary, where the ticker goes worse. Kid knows this, busts out (in the outgoing garbage), pleads with hotshot to help. Despite hotshot’s not actually knowing anybody, he manages to get in to see the reporter, kid tells story…and, as the cops arrive, the bootlegger finally develops a heart and signs a confession. After which, of course, the reformatory gets cleaned up (the kid doesn’t go back). Oh, his friend dies.

Pat O’Brien’s the hotshot. Bette Davis is his girlfriend, who suspects he’s mostly a blowhard. Incidentally, the plot summary on the sleeve gets it badly wrong, having the kid escape because the hotshot Kelly is seeing too much of the kid’s girlfriend—but the kid doesn’t have a girlfriend in the movie.

All a little too formulaic—and maybe it doesn’t matter in this case. While the print’s so-so visually, the soundtrack is so scratchy that I almost gave up on it several times. I can’t imagine most sane people would ever listen all the way through. Given that, it can’t earn more than $0.50.

The Evil Mind (or The Clairvoyant), 1934, b&w. Maurice Elvey (dir.), Claude Rains, Jane Baxter, Athole Stewart. 1:21 [1:08].

Maximus works as a stage clairvoyant, using his wife’s clues to say what she’s holding—until, in the presence of another woman, he suddenly makes a real and correct prediction. This happens a couple of times; he gets a big London stage engagement but the producer’s unhappy because he can’t do big predictions to order. Meanwhile, his wife’s becoming jealous of the young woman. This all leads up to his unwilling prediction of a tunneling catastrophe—one that, when it comes true, causes him to be put on trial on the basis that his prediction caused the catastrophe.

There’s little point in saying more about the plot. It’s not bad, actually, and there’s a nice twist involving why he only makes accurate predictions under certain circumstances. The print is jumpy at points, 13 minutes are missing and the soundtrack’s damaged at points as well, but not so much as to ruin the picture. It’s generally well-acted. While the sleeve lists Fay Wray (the wife) as the “legend,” I’d say Claude Rains’ faintly bizarre and very well played Maximus deserves more credit. The original title (“The Clairvoyant”) suits this better, as there’s nothing evil in Rains’ predictions. I’ll give it $1.00.

This feels like a very weak final disc—in a couple of cases, finding something to fill out the 50. Such is life.

Buster Keaton Festival, all silent (with unrelated music), all b&w, all starring (and written and directed by) Buster Keaton. The Blacksmith, 1922, 0:21 [0:19]; The Boat, 1921, 0:20 [0:22]; The Paleface, 1922, 0:20; Daydreams, 1922, 0:18.

Maybe it’s because Keaton doesn’t deliberately act the clown. Maybe it’s because his pictures were really his pictures. Whatever the case, these work pretty well.

I’d seen The Blacksmith and The Paleface on earlier packs (where they counted as full movies). The Paleface is pretty clever, The Blacksmith is good physical comedy; I’d give each of them $0.35 to $0.50. The Boat tells a sad story of boat-building incompetence, very well done for maximum laughs (if you ignore the peril); another $0.50. Daydreams feels like a later picture than either The Blacksmith or The Boat—better photography, more plot, generally very good. I’d give it another $0.50. These aren’t slapstick, by and large; they’re something subtler.

That comes out to $1.70 to $2.00—let’s call it $1.75. That’s on the high side, but this is an enjoyable 80 minutes (or so) of silent comedy as done by one of the masters.

Buster Keaton Classics, all silent (with unrelated music), all b&w, all starring Buster Keaton. The Playhouse, 1921, 0:22 [0:20]; The Balloonatic, 1923, 0:22; My Wife’s Relations, 1922, 0:30 [0:23]; The Electric House, 1922, 0:22 [0:20].

The Playhouse (or Play House) begins with an astonishing five-minute sequence in which Keaton plays all the roles—the conductor, members of the orchestra, a comedy troupe, and even the audience (men, women and children alike)—and the playbill also shows him in all the roles and stage crew. (Given that this had to be done by in-camera multiple exposures, it’s nothing short of astonishing: At one point, there are nine Keatons on stage.) After that dream sequence, it’s another knockabout comedy set on stage, albeit with a cute side plot in which Keaton’s girlfriend is one of identical twins—and he can’t tell them apart. Two problems: The comedy troupe includes blackface, maybe “typical for its time” but still unfortunate—and the print’s bad enough that it blooms to white in the middle at some points. On balance, $0.35.

The Balloonatic starts at a funhouse and involves balloons and the wilderness—and it’s all gags (and, of course, Keaton’s indomitable incompetence) with a plot that barely holds together. Maybe I’ve seen the “holder with no bottom” three or four times too often in Keaton’s shorts. This felt forced. $0.20.

My Wife’s Relations is based on Keaton unwittingly marrying a big woman with four big, mean brothers (it has to do with Polish judges), being generally beleaguered—Keaton always seems to be a hapless creature—and other nonsense. Decent plot, almost entirely slapstick. Maybe the half-hour version makes more sense. $0.30.

The Electric House offers a Keaton newly graduated from college—but handed the wrong degree, certifying him as an Electrical Engineer when he should have been a Doctor of Botany. The bigwig handing out the degrees wants his new house electrified and offers Keaton the job, while he goes on vacation. Fortunately, the bigwig’s daughter tosses Keaton a book, Electricity Made Easy or something of the sort. The family returns to a remarkably “electrified” house—with stairs that become escalators, a dining room with self-seating chairs and a model train to serve dishes from the kitchen, an electrified pool table and more. Of course things go wrong in a variety of ways. This one’s worth $0.50.

Add them up and I get $1.35, which sounds about right: Watchable but somewhat disappointing, except for the first five minutes and the last short.

Steamboat Bill, Jr., 1928, Charles Reisner (dir.), Buster Keaton, Tom McGuire, Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, Tom Lewis. 1:11 [1:09]

Not quite a feature-length film (or maybe it was for the time), this silent has a real plot, loads of physical comedy in Keaton’s best form, and a romance—and this time, Keaton wins out in the end. He’s the son of a steamboat operator, William “Steamboat Bill” Canfield, with a rundown sternwheeler, just in town (River Junction) from college in Boston—and his girl back in Boston is also in town. She’s the daughter of the bigshot, John James King, who’s introducing a spiffy new steamboat that will put Steamboat Bill’s clunker out of business—especially when King has it condemned. Naturally, King forbids his daughter from seeing Bill Jr. and Bill forbids his son from seeing the girl, in both cases saying “I’ll choose the right mate for you,” so there’s a little Montague-Capulet plot here as well. Father tries to turn son into a proper steamboater (part of which includes a hat-choice sequence that’s remarkably good fun), and there’s lots more.

Add a lengthy, involved storm sequence (with some astonishing and presumably dangerous stunts and special effects) and Bill Jr.’s unexpected bravery and competence, and you have quite a picture. (You may have heard of the classic and potentially deadly shot where the front of a house falls on Keaton, standing in the street—and happening to be just where an open window frame is. No stunt double, and supposedly some of the crew couldn’t stand to watch the filming.) And, for a change, the music is actually related to the film—a theater organ track that’s apparently composed for the picture, as it includes appropriate sound effects. Good print. Sigh. This is one I’ll probably watch again and it’s clearly a classic, but I’m hard-pressed to give more than $1.25 to a one-hour flick. Oh well, it’s 1:11 (or 1:09): $2.00.

As You Like It, 1936, b&w. Paul Czinner (dir.), Henry Einley, Elisabeth Bergner, Felix Aylmer, Laurence Olivier. 1:36 [1:27].

From Buster Keaton to William Shakespeare—well, why not? This is not a filmed play; they expand the scope to natural settings but retain the dialogue. Unfortunately, the first part of the film has a noisy soundtrack, which doesn’t help matters on something as dialogue-heavy as a Shakespeare comedy.

I won’t trouble you with the plot. It’s all Shakespeare, almost all in the forest of Arden; the film omits some of the play but apparently adds no new dialogue.

Laurence Olivier—not Sir at that point—stars. It’s a generally lively, solid performance. You need serious suspension of disbelief for the key conceit in the film: That Orlando (Olivier), deeply in love with Rosalind, cannot recognize her as either Rosalind or as a woman because she is wearing tights and a frilly shirt/blouse rather than a dress, even though she makes no attempt to disguise her hairdo or, really, her voice. But hey, it’s a comedy, and there are some fine monologues along the way (including “All the world’s a stage”). Because of the soundtrack and missing nine minutes, I can’t give it more than $1.25.

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Bonus for those who’ve made it this far:

Tomorrow I switch back to the other 50-pack (Hollywood Legends)–but to the final disc. That should take two to three weeks.

After that, I’ll go to Disc 3 of Comedy Classics. The question is:

What set should I alternate with Comedy Classics?

While there are actually several choices, it boils down to two possibilities:

• Start in on the Mystery Collection, 60 discs with 250 movies.
• Start in on Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins, one of the smaller packs Mill Creek sent me when they replaced a defective disc in the Hollywood Legends set. It includes two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 18 of Hitchcock’s early films (from 1926 through 1939, all B&W, several silent), and 55 minutes of trailers for later Hitchcock movies. That’s four long discs. (It sells for about $8 at Amazon, but has sold as low as $5.)

I’m going to let you decide. I’ll choose whichever set gets the most comments by the time I finish the Hollywood Legends set.

That’s right—it’s another 50-pack, this time comedy “classics.”

It’s a little tricky to watch silent short comedies, particularly slapstick comedies—particularly when you’re alone. There’s the gap of time and change in comedy styles to consider; silents offer fewer clues; and most of all, to be fair to the original flick, you have to wonder what it would be like to watch it in a movie theatre surrounded by hundreds of others, with organ music going behind the movie. I’m trying to do that; it’s not always easy.

This disc consists of five collections of shorts—17 in all.

Stan Laurel Festival (all b&w, all silent and presented with unrelated music, all with Stan Laurel). Includes Mud and Sand, 1922, Gilbert Pratt (dir.), 0:26; Just Rambling Along, 1918, Hal Roach (dir.), Clarine Seymour, 0:09; Oranges and Lemons, 1923, George Jeske (dir.), 0:12.

Mud and Sand would seem inordinately strange if you hadn’t seen Rudolph Valentino’s Blood and Sand—but fortunately, I had—and recently (in the 50 Movie Hollywood Legends set). With Stan Laurel as Rhubarb Vaselino—well, it’s pretty much a plot-for-plot remake but with silly names, lots of titles talking about “bull” with both meanings, and Laurel’s slapstick. The print’s poor at times, and this seemed as forced as many single-movie spoofs.

Just Rambling Along is apparently one of the earliest Laurel shorts, and it’s best moment is in a cafeteria line where Laurel manages to cadge a fairly full meal out of a ten cent cup of coffee (but the pretty young thing he sits next to then swaps his not-yet-paid ticket for her $1.25 big meal). Good print and so-so slapstick: I might have been laughing in that theater.

Oranges and Lemons is set in a citrus processing facility and grove and makes no sense at all—and it’s a decent little slapstick film, with just the kind of nonsense that Laurel could do well. Generally decent print. All three shorts are accompanied by appropriate (if not directly related) music.

Considering that the whole trio only adds up to about 46 minutes and there’s not a gem among them, I can’t give this more than $0.75.

Our Gang Festival. Includes Our Gang Follies, 1937, b&w, Gordon Douglas (dir.), George ‘Spanky’ McFarland, Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer, Billie ‘Buckwheat’ Thomas, Doodles Weaver and the rest of Our Gang, 0:21; School’s Out, 1930, b&w, Robert F. McGowan (dir.), Jackie Cooper, Allen ‘Farina’ Hoskins, Bobby ‘Wheezer’ Hutchins and the rest of the Little Rascals, 0:20; Bear Shooters, same credits (by and large), 0:20.

I doubt that I’d be an avid consumer of Our Gang comedies even “in the day,” but I could be wrong. At this remove, and with this trio, it seems like different casts and considerably different qualities. And so it is. My first inclination, especially given the opening titles, was to believe that one movie was the “real” Our Gang and the other two were “Hal Roach’s Little Rascals in Our Gang”—but it turns out “Little Rascals” and “Our Gang” both seem to be used interchangeably for a whole succession of casts.

The first (and newest) movie is the newer group with Spanky McFarland, Alfalfa Switzer, and Buckwheat Thomas, while the other two are Jackie Cooper, Farina Hoskins and the rest of the earlier group—an almost entirely different cast. I couldn’t warm up to Cooper’s crew. (Good grief. There were 221 of these things between 1922 and 1944!)

Our Gang Follies (of 1938, not of 1937) is cute and well-produced, consisting mostly of song-and-dance routines in a follies run by Spanky. The hook is that Alfalfa, the star crooner, has decided he wants to sing opera (which consists of singing “I am the barber of Seville” three times, followed by “Figaro” twice)—and after getting booed off the stage, he goes to an opera house where the manager, to get rid of him, signs him to a contract 20 years in the future. Comes a dream and flashforward, where all the kids are still kids, Alfalfa’s bombed as an opera singer (getting vegetables thrown at him) and is put out on the street to sing opera and collect coins. Spanky owns a nightclub and invites him in—but Alfalfa can’t sing there, because the opera impresario won’t allow it. Never mind; it all works out. A clever little two-reeler.

The other two? Well, School’s Out has the credits spoken by a pair of little girls; otherwise, it’s Klassroom Komedy that mostly revolves around kids who don’t want their teacher to get married and think her brother is actually her suitor. Bear Shooters involves a camping trip, sibling rivalries, limburger cheese and, for reasons that aren’t apparent, two men hiding in the woods who want to scare off the kids and do so by one of them donning a gorilla suit. Maybe I would have found it hilarious when I was five years old. I doubt it. Mostly for Our Gang Follies, I’ll say this group might conceivably be worth $0.50.

All-Star Extravaganza. Umbrella title for three entirely different shorts:

The Stolen Jools (aka The Slippery Pearls), 1931, b&w, William C. McGann (dir.), Wallace Beery, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Gary Cooper, Loretta Young and literally dozens of stars (more than 50 in all). 0.20. An odd little all-star short to raise money for a tuberculosis sanatorium, this was funded by Chesterfield (yes, they get a credit, and are the only cigarettes mentioned), presumably done for almost nothing by the dozens of stars and distributed for free by Paramount. It’s lots of little cameos dressed up as a jewel-theft mystery. Schtick on a stick, but some of it’s decent schtick. On the other hand, with almost two minutes of credits for a 20-minute two-reeler, it presages today’s bloated credits. I’ll give it $0.25.

Ghost Parade, 1931, b&w, Mack Sennett (dir.), Harry Gribbon, Andy Clyde, Marion Sayers, 0:20 [0:17]. This odd item has some people in an old house that appears haunted, lots of slapstick, plot elements that seem to pop up and disappear randomly, mice crawling over a xylophone and somehow creating good music, and Halloween costumes. It might have been hilarious at the time, it may be typical of Mack Sennett shorts, and I wonder whether its status as an early talkie (with a credit for sound synchronization) is important. It’s also missing a few minutes. To be charitable, I’ll give it $0.10.

La Cucaracha, 1934, color, Lloyd Corrigan (dir.), Steffi Duna, Don Alvorado, Paul Porcasi, Eduardo Durant’s Rhumba Band, 0:20. Writing these notes before looking at IMDB, deliberately, this pleasant surprise seems likely to be a very early 3-strip Technicolor short, done partly to show off Technicolor. (Two-strip Technicolor couldn’t handle the full spectrum.) It has big swatches of deep blue, reds, golds, greens, as well as other colors. The plot’s cute, set in a cantina: Impresario and food snob arrives, speaking of taking a dancer to the big city under contract if he’s good. Dancer’s woman friend overhears this, accuses male of planning to desert her; he calls her La Cucaracha—the cockroach—and shakes her off. She sabotages the impresario’s salad dressing (or, rather, goads him into sabotaging it himself—much better). Her friends convince her to sing a song (guess which one?). Then, the guy’s big dance number comes up, she and her friends try to sabotage it by starting La Cucaracha again, the guy’s dance partner walks off, turns out the two songs blend—and, of course, she winds up dancing the number, the impresario hires both of them, and all’s well with the world. (After checking IMDB: Right on the money. This is the first live-action 3-strip Technicolor film and the color is nicely preserved. It won an Oscar as Best Short Subject, Comedy.) The sound’s not great, but it’s a charming little number and good demonstration of Technicolor, for which I’ll give it $0.40.

So that totals $0.75 for the three shorts put together: Not terrible, not great.

Fatty Arbuckle Festival (all with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, all silent and presented with unrelated music, all b&w). Includes Fatty Joins the Force, 1913, George Nichols (dir.), Dot Farley, Edgar Kennedy, Mack Swain, 0:12 [0:14]; Fatty’s Spooning Day (also known as Mabel, Fatty and the Law), 1915, Roscoe Arbuckle (dir.), Mabel Normand, Harry Gribbon, Minta Durfee, 0:11; Fatty’s Suitless Day (also known as Fatty’s Magic Pants), 1914, Roscoe Arbuckle (dir.), Charley Chase, Minta Durfee, 0:12; The Speed Kings, 1913, Wilfred Lucas (dir.), Ford Sterling, Mabel Normand, several actual race-car drivers, 0:08.

If you find big men falling down a lot, sometimes not having pants and getting hit over the head by cops frequently just hysterical, you’ll love these—or at least the first three. If not… I will say that the slapstick is surrounded by plots, although the second one’s plot seems to be a love song to wifeswapping. The last one’s really not an Arbuckle short: He’s in it for perhaps 90 seconds and is definitely a minor character. I just didn’t find any of them all that funny, but I’ll give the group $0.50.

Keystone Cops Festival. Misleading umbrella title for four shorts, the longest of which doesn’t include cops of any sort. All silent (presented with unrelated music), all b&w.

The Bangville Police, 1913, Henry Lehrman (dir.), Mabel Normand, Nick Cogley, Dot Farley, Fred Mace, and a cop who looks like Fatty Arbuckle. 0:08. Odd little farm piece with a police chief who summons his troops by shooting into the ceiling several times and what seems to be the standard for gunplay: Guns have unlimited number of bullets, are almost always aimed at rear ends and never seem to inflict any damage. I’d have to stretch to come up with $0.05 for this seven-minute piece.

Love, Speed and Thrills, 1915, Mack Sennett (dir.), Mack Swain, Minta Durfee, Chester Conklin, Josef Swickard and the Keystone Kops, 0:13. Hunting gone bad and flirtations, plus some use of comedy cops and slapstick driving. Better than the first, but still no more than a dime’s worth of humor. $0.10.

Her Painted Hero, F. Richard Jones (dir.), Hale Hamilton, Polly Moran, 0:21. I dunno. Maybe the Keystone Cops were watching as this two-reeler was filmed, but there are no police in the piece at all. It seems to be about big inheritances, untalented actors, spurned suitors (all gold-diggers) and a woman buying her way onto the stage where slapstick chaos ensues. The chaos is worth $0.10.

Wife and Auto Trouble, 1916, Dell Henderson and Mack Sennett (dir.), William Collier Sr., Blanche Payson, Alice Davenport, Mae Busch, 0:14 . Yes, there are cops—for about 90 seconds near the end of this short about a man with a big domineering wife, mean mother-in-law and a secretary he’d like to fool around with. They’re the Tri-Stone Cops, not the Keystone Kops or Cops, but never mind. Lots of falling down, a fair amount of shooting and some physical comedy. For this they needed two directors? Very generously, $0.15.

Adding it up, I get a paltry $0.40. Maybe if there were actually four shorts starring the Keystone Cops? Clearly I’m not in awe of early silent-movie slapstick; you may feel differently.

Whew. After Disc 11 of Hollywood Legends (but, thanks to a disc production error I’ve discussed elsewhere, I’ve already seen the two movies on side one), it’s back to another side of nothing but shorts—but this time, they’re Buster Keaton shorts.

For some of my more visually-oriented readers (and yes, this book will have graphs when appropriate), an actual example of what’s at stake might help. I’m not going to embed the table—that brings along wayyyyy too much HTML—but let’s see whether Word’s blog-to-WordPress will help.

A complete table (more or less)

A trimmed table (more or less)

In the book, of course, the tables are a little neater–each row is a single line high.

So: is the first substantially more useful than the second? (If you’re wondering: “Q” represents quintiles, explained in the book—and yes, these are real numbers for a real blog.)

Comments either here or on the original post. Thanks!

Still available at my Lulu storefront or directly, with full information and preview pages. Also available (on bright-white paper instead of cream book paper), with ISBN 978-1434805256, from Amazon.

The 247-page paperback is $29.50. If you prefer a PDF ebook, it’s $20, only from Lulu.

Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change is my contribution to the ongoing set of discussions, experiments and changes in libraries and librarianship that sometimes carries the name “Library 2.0.”

It’s been out for about 14 months. I think it’s still a valuable contribution to the ongoing set of discussions.

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Why should I buy this book?

Here’s what some reviewers had to say:

Pete Smith at Library Too:

I recommend this book to anyone interested in ‘Library 2.0′ and other contemporary issues, as Crawford sets them in their wider context. Yet it covers broader issues than just the latest technology, and does so in a considered way. As such, it will also stand when today’s issues are yesterday’s debates. It is passionate, yet not partisan; timely, yet not time bound.

Jennifer Macaulay at Life as I know it:

I would recommend this book to any of my colleagues. Whether one likes the term or not, the concept of Library 2.0 is important as are the discussions that have taken place around it. Reading Balanced Libraries is a great way to learn more about Library 2.0 – in a very non-threatening way that won’t cause people to become overwhelmed by the winds of change that seem to always be surrounding us.

Wouter at Wow! Wouter over het Web – well, you’ll just have to read the review (if you read the language)

John DuPuis at Confessions of a Science Librarian:

One of the best things about this book was that it provoked an awful lot of internal debates as I was reading it. You know how when you’re reading a book and suddenly you’re stopped in your tracks by something? It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree (and I certainly didn’t agree with everything in Crawford’s book), it makes you think, it makes you start a kind of virtual discussion with the author. You find yourself saying, “But, what if…” or “You know, that’s not how I think that would happen…” or “Right on, and what about…” It takes a long time to read a book like that, because so much of your time is spent digesting what you’ve read. It often took me a day or two in between chapters to process. Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics, which I was reading more or less simultaneously, was the same.

John Miedema, now at johnmiedema.ca:

Balance is not a sexy idea, but Crawford helps makes sense of the debate, showing how both change and stasis can be troublesome for libraries, providing a fresh take on the timeless wisdom that technology must serve the library mission, not the reverse.

Those are all brief excerpts from thoughtful reviews. Go read the full reviews, and decide whether this book would be worthwhile for you or your library.

What to say?

I begin to see why more and more blogs have capcha-style validation on their message forms.

Yes, Spam Karma 2 has been capturing spam–but because at least one valid comment was flagged as spam, I’ve been trying to check its harvest.

And the harvest is just getting too big, up over a hundred a day. I don’t know what these cretins think they’re accomplishing (one semi-spam got through, but I deleted it), but their automated forms result in way more than I’m willing to look at.

I’m not wild about capcha techniques, particularly since the image can be hard to decipher (I haven’t used this one yet), and there are accessibility issues (you can always send me email if you have trouble commenting, noting that the email is intended to be a comment; if it passes muster, I’ll add it myself). But I don’t want to turn off commenting, I don’t want to require registration, and I don’t want to spend more time checking lists of spamments than I do writing posts…

Two things have happened since then:

1. When I tried to see how Capcha was working, by using my wife’s notebook, the routine failed for some bizarre TrueType reason.

2. Checking here after three hours, it’s clear that the spam just keeps on flowing. Which suggests to me that this Capcha, if it’s doing anything at all, is downstream of Spam Karma for some reason. Which means it’s useless.

So I’ve deactivated it. For now.

One consequence: I don’t expect to keep checking the Spam Karma logs for erroneous spam capture. There’s just too many to go through, particularly when I’m away from the blog for a few days. So, if you post something and it never shows up, chances are Spam Karma didn’t like it. Sorry about that.

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