The Camera Caught It

This episode of MGM's "A Pete Smith Specialty" series of shorts looks at film showing real events and incidents that were not staged. "The Camera Caught It" is narrated and produced by "a Smith named Pete." Unusual weather begins the documentary. Today, these weather extremes are more common. Demolition activity is next, as we see structures demolished. Amateur aviation receives much attention, as man makes several attempts to fly like a bird. We end the long aviation segment with a "Sky Car" hopping up and down. Race cars are a popular sight (still are), and the secret desire to see a crash is fulfilled. We're told nobody was hurt in the tragedy shown, but a fiery race-car makes you wonder if that statement is true. Last and most interesting, a new bridge collapses in strong winds.

*** The Camera Caught It (10/9/54) Pete Smith ~ Pete Smith

Some interesting glimpses of natural disasters and demolition projects are revealed in THE CAMERA CAUGHT IT.

It starts with the weather, scenes of heavy snowfalls and even heavier rains making life unbearable for humans and animals; a demolition project with the crowd anticipating the blast; men trying to "emulate the birds" by flying off a bridge in a man-made contraption that promptly sinks into the water or a man with a "sky flying machine" who gets nowhere fast except for vibrating up and down in his inventive jalopy. An auto race in which one of the cars turns into a flaming torch (nobody was killed) while other cars swerve to avoid the flames and all of them providing spectators with a number of crashes.

And finally, a suspension bridge the narrator calls "Galloping Gertie," swerving to and fro as though pushed by a heavy breeze until it finally loses its grip and falls into the water.

Quite an eyeful of candid moments caught by the camera. The mushroom cloud that swirls around after a building demolition is an eerie reminder for today's viewer of what happened when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11.

One of the late Pete Smith Specials from MGM, this features a lot of newsreel footage of various unlikely events, such as buildings being blown up, concrete blocks intended for construction purposes accidentally being dropped into the water and, best for for my taste, various ungainly early attempts at building heavier-than-air flying machines, including a most improbable one in which a bunch of wings are arranged in a sort of waterwheel arrangement, going up and down. That one needs to be seen to be believed, and even after having seen it, I'm not sure it was intended as more than a spoof.

All of these clips are accompanied, as usual, by Pete Smith's snide voice, expressing, as usual, a certain worldly-wise contempt for the entire proceedings. Well, the man started out as a publicist, so he should know.

Camera Caught It, The (1954)

*** (out of 4)

Fun Pete Smith short that shows what all a movie camera can pick up in the real world. We see footage of natural disasters, car wrecks, buildings coming down and even a bridge collapsing. I had a lot of fun with this short because some of the footage is rather amazing. We get some typical stuff like a flooded town and a large wall coming down but what really stood out were two separate scenes. One happens early on when we see a sea storm where a boat, with people on it, crashes into some rocks by the shore. Another great sequence is at the end when the bridge "Galloping Gertie" begins to shake before falling into the water.

ONCE AGAIN WE have a PETE SMITH SPECIALTY that it is somewhat different than the lack, In it we find no "How To" situation, no stuntman/actor, no witty commentary (from "a Smith Named Pete) and no guffaws, chuckles or belly-laughs for the audience' just some plain old exposition & demonstration.

IF ANYTHING, THIS short is a sort of cheater; in that the whole thing is an exploitation if odds & ends of old film footage. Much of it was certainly in Public Domain and not the property of MGM's Leo the Lion; nut that's okay by us.

THUS RESULTING SHORT is an eclectic hodge-podge of the unusual, all captured on film. Either by accident or intentionally, the cameras were there and the mostly truly candid incidents preserved were of many a mood from deadly serious to mildly amusing to heartbreaking for some of the brave souls putting up their best attempts at some event, only to fall flat on their blushingly pink faces.

THERE IS MUCH of the film that we have seen before, mostly in that 1970's variety reel, GIZMO. It is our guess that this footage came from various Newsreel-type fodder, with a lot of it being related to failed prototypes for new varieties of the "Aero-plane."

THE ONE MOST spectacular (and frightening) clip showed the new suspension bridge in Washington State being demolished by high winds; all because the engineering of the structure didn't allow for it to have a "little Wiggle Room" for free swaying sand orderly dissipation of tension on the structure.

JUST IB CASE we hadn't already, Mr. Pete Smith provided the narration, albeit without his characteristic smart-alleck style of delivery. Both Schultz and meself wish to say: "Thanks, Pete!"