The best Pete Smith’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Pete Smith’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Pete Smith.
Manhattan Melodrama
7.1/10
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
La Fiesta de Santa Barbara
5.9/10
Hollywood stars participate in a Mexican-themed revue and festival in Santa Barbara. Andy Devine, the "World's Greatest Matador", engages in a bullfight with a dubious bovine supplied by Señor Keaton, and musical numbers are provided by Joe Morrison and the Garland Sisters.
Seeing Hands
6.7/10
This serious Pete Smith Specialty series entry encourages industry to hire people with disabilities to help with the war effort. As a boy, Ben Helwig was blinded in an accident while playing baseball. He eventually acquired a guide dog and now works in a defense plant.
Harnessed Rhythm
6.1/10
This Sports Parade series entry follows the life of Dixie Dan, a harness racehorse, from birth through age three.
Movie Pests
6.6/10
This Pete Smith Specialty short takes a humorous look at the inconsiderate pests whose annoying habits make enjoying a movie impossible.
Penny Wisdom
6.1/10
A Pete Smith Specialty short on saving an important dinner after the household's cook suddenly quits.
Flicker Memories
5.4/10
In this Pete Smith Specialty short, clips from several unidentified silent films are woven into a story, with humorous commentary by Smith.
Weather Wizards
6.3/10
Modern meteorology and a hard-working government weather team put their science and organization to work as a cold front moves from Alaska toward the citrus groves of Southern California. First, the scientists predict the storm's course, giving several days' warning to farmers and growers. The growers, typified by the Morgan family, prepare the oil-burning pots throughout their grove. Then, as the temperature dips below freezing, they light the pots. The cold snap continues as oil-supplies dwindle; the smoky air slows traffic, including trucks bringing more oil. The scientists strive to predict how long freezing temperatures will last: can the Morgans hold out?
Snow Birds
6.1/10
This Pete Smith Sports Champion short visits Southern California where it quickly moves from orange orchards to the mountain snow playground at Big Pines L.A. County Camp for some winter sports including sledding, skating, and ski jumping.
Candid Cameramaniacs
5.9/10
Short comedic subject on the history of photography from the daguerrotype to modern amateur photographers.
The Great Morgan
5.2/10
Frank Morgan is hired to put together a movie using odds and ends from the MGM vaults. He does so by splicing together a string of completely unrelated short subjects and musical numbers, interspersed with a repeated loop of a scene from some melodrama. (Contains in their entirety the shorts, "Musical Masterpieces," "Our Old Car," and "Badminton," as well as clips from other projects)
The Tree in a Test Tube
4.6/10
Stan and Ollie are stopped by narrator Pete Smith for the purpose of showing the audience how much wood and wood by-products the average person carries. Stan and Ollie then begin to open their pockets and briefcase, pulling out a variety of things that derive from the tree. The narrator talks all the way through this short film (about 7 minutes long). The idea is that scientists can put everything that comes from the tree into one test tube.
Fancy Answers
6.1/10
In this Pete Smith Speciality, the audience is asked a series of multiple-choice questions on various subjects.
Menu
6.2/10
A chef helps a housewife cook a duck dinner that will not give her husband indigestion.
Seventh Column
6.3/10
This humorous short film shows how carelessness and accidents can harm the war effort, and steps on how to avoid them.
Groovie Movie
7/10
A boogie-woogie piano introduces what purports to be a jitterbug lesson, starring prize winner Arthur Walsh, his partner, and then later various other couples. We start with steps imported from other dances, like the waltz, then sped up. Next Walsh and his partner show some basic steps, but the movements are too swift for the narrator to describe them or the viewer to learn how to do them. By the end, various couples (all but a pair of briefly-seen children are white), including some comic ones, give a high-speed demonstration as the music rocks and swings. These are hep cats. Pete Smith's narration is full of slang.
Sure Cures
5.6/10
This comedic Pete Smith Specialty short examines the folly of using "home remedies" for various ills.
Color Scales
5.9/10
This short film shows various species of tropical fish at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, California.
The Grand Bounce
6.1/10
A man writes a check for $1,000 to cover a gambling debt. The problem is that he doesn't have enough money in his bank account to cover it. The check was written on Friday afternoon, but cannot be cashed before the following Tuesday. The check is used to pay several debts until...
Water Trix
6/10
In this Pete Smith Specialty, cameraman Charles T. Trego films water skiing champion Preston Petersen, as he and two unnamed female skiers perform various tricks and feats of skill in their sport.
