Hollywood Scout

This below average Pete Smith short features a woman, as the titled Hollywood talent scout, sitting at her desk reviewing various film clip submissions from pet owners who feel that their dogs have noteworthy talents (as Smith narrates). Most of this producer's features are above average and very entertaining; some have even won awards. Pete Smith received sixteen Academy Award nominations, earning two Oscars and an Honorary Award from AMPAS for this career. Unfortunately, this one is not up to his usual standards. A German Shephard is shown walking a tightrope, another is shown jumping onto a swing. But these talented dogs are actually the highlight of this short whose final segment is particularly lame.

Hollywood Scout (1945)

** (out of 4)

Pete Smith short about animal talents in Hollywood. There are a few good tricks shown but overall this thing is pretty boring and doesn't contain the laughs of most good Smith shorts. There were other shorts out around this time that talked about the animal talents in Hollywood but for some reason this is the one TCM shows most often.

Have You Ever Wondered? (1947)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Pete Smith short takes a look at small thing that you might wonder about ever so often including whether men or women are better drivers or if certain foods mixed can cause you to get sick. This is one of the better shorts that I've seen from Smith as it remains interesting throughout and also has quite a few laughs especially one sequence, which deals with wigs.

A Smith named Pete narrates this short subject about animal acts. While there's a trained bear and a chimpanzee, it's mostly about dog acts: cute puppies, and a dog who leaps into a trapeze, and former acrobat Paul Sydell and his troupe of dogs, including him training them... except for the tail, untrainable as a cowlick.

Although there's a cute girl to distract the audience, and the slide whistle comes into play, this isn't one of Pete's better short subjects. His trademark snark is muted by the cuteness of it all. In addition, this one seems padded. All of Pete's shorts may be subject to that knock. They were intended to pad out a film program.show or what?

It's a dog's day afternoon at the talent scout's office. By the end of the day she slams the door on a man who shows up with a monkey. "Can I show you a trained monkey?" Slam! That's the tone of this MGM short with some dogs doing some amazing balancing acts--or jumping through a swinging trapeze, balancing on a wheel, balancing on a man's hand in acrobatic fashion. The dog handler himself had acrobatic training before becoming a dog trainer.

And finally, there's a stunt with a big black bear that has the talent scout fed up with all the nonsense.

Not one of the best Pete Smith specialties, but amusing enough.