Crashing the Movies

The misleading title led me to believe this would be about actors trying to crash into the movies, but instead it's a Pete Smith Specialty featuring a number of oddities involving crashes.

It starts with newsreel camera men capturing for posterity a fat ladies diving competition which looks painful when they hit the water; a woman trapeze artist who hangs by her teeth over Manhattan streets on a high wire act; a surfer trying to get a lift from a glider but plunging into the water after each try; motorcycles crashing through glass barriers; and finally, several human projectiles being shot from cannon-like devices or improvising with devices of their own, all crashing spectacularly into water or safety nets.

Nothing really spectacular, it's just a time passer.

An MGM PETE SMITH SPECIALITY Short Subject

Some folks will do anything when it comes to CRASHING THE MOVIES.

Narrator Pete Smith gives the viewer an eccentric look at some of the odder sights captured by newsreel photographers, including a fat ladies' diving competition, human cannonballs, and assorted car crashes.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

"A Pete Smith Specialty", this MGM short focuses on daredevil stunts, as captured by newsreel cameramen. Sound effects and Mr. Smith's amusing narrative ("Narrated and produced by a Smith named Pete") are added throughout. We begin with the relatively innocuous "Fat Ladies in Diving Competition". The action becomes more dangerous, but no one is shown getting hurt - from the looks of things, people had to have suffered serious injuries attempting some of these feats. "Cannonball Richards" is featured; the penultimate attraction, he takes a lot of hits to the stomach. Performing daredevil stunts for the camera is nothing new, this proves.

**** Crashing the Movies (1/28/50) Pete Smith ~ Pete Smith, Frank "Cannonball" Richards

This MGM short ran in theaters with a feature film in 1950. I saw it last on a DVD with the comedy musical, "Two Weeks with Love." The film is eight minutes and runs like a newsreel, from which several video clips are shown. Pete Smith narrates as it shows various unusual, risky, comical or daredevil feats that different people had done or were trying. Some might leave many people wondering if the performer wasn't off his rocker - or had all his marbles, so to speak.

These weren't all crashes, so I think the title referred to unusual and odd things some people might do to try to crash into moving pictures. These folks made newsreels, evidently. The most interesting clips to me were the human projectile - a guy being shot out of a cannon; and a water skier holding a glider and trying to go aloft while being pulled by a boat.

The craziest one has to be a guy wearing some sort of special pants, riding and holding onto the back of a speeding car, and then lowering himself and letting go so that he slides on his bottom until coming to a stop. The car had to be going at least 30 and maybe 40 miles per hour. He survived it and apparently wasn't hurt, but I wonder if he hadn't lost some of his marbles.

A Smith called Pete takes us into the newsreel files and pulls out some weird stunts, like women traveling over the rooftops of Manhattan by a wire, hanging by their teeth, and the sort of daredevil car crash shows that proceeded racing events -- Evil Knievel work for people of my age.

Anyone who has browsed the Internet for videos of drunk Russians driving, or taken a look at Daniel Tosh's clip show, Tosh.0, will instantly recognize what we're looking at here, down to the contemptuous jokes cracked by the narrator. Pete's shorts offer a lot more sound effects than Tosh, who apparently feels no need to enrich the idiocy of humans other than a warning from his networks that they do not encourage these stunts. Yeah, sure. As if people aren't willing to risk their lives and limbs for the chance of a little publicity.