This Is a Living?

A Smith Called Pete narrates this short about people who earn their livings in odd ways: guys who toss horse shoes ringers forty feet blindfolded over their wives' heads, acrobats who dangle from wobbly spires and the famous diving horse of Atlantic City's Steel Pier.

It's a clip show, bits and pieces from earlier Pete Smith specialties, including the acrobatic Cristianis. The Pete Smith specialties were a popular short subject from MG, but budgets had been cut, and the series would last onl a cople more years. Ree-editing older shorts was a way of producing a cheap "new" entry in the series.

I saw this short on TCM.

It starts with stock footage shots of regular people punching time clocks and working in normal jobs while narrator Pete Smith reminds us that most people have normal, routine, unexciting jobs in offices, shops, and factories with scheduled hours. He then states that some people have very unusual ways of earning their living, and that he has "combed" the land and years for examples. This is a very interesting premise... unfortunately...

What Pete really meant to say was that he really only combed MGM's stock footage of circuses, carnivals and state fairs for the examples. We are shown footage of gymnastic acrobats, horseback acrobats, high wire artists, pole swayers, flying trapeze artists, a horse diver, and a diving stuntman. In fact, the only example that doesn't fall in the narrow category of aerial or gymnastic acrobat is the married couple who perform trick shots with horseshoes. While it's true that most people have routine jobs, the world has a very wide variety of people who make a living in very unusual and very different ways, but this short only shows us examples from one narrow group.

If you just want to see aerial and gymnastic acrobats, then you'll enjoy this short. However, in terms of fulfilling it's interesting premise, this short is very lazy and uncreative and inadequate, and it's most likely 100% stock footage shots. And none of Pete Smith's attempts at humor in this one are memorable.

I wonder if some poor kid saw this short in the 50's and said "Gee... my only two options in life are working a boring 9 to 5 job... or joining the circus".

This is a Living? (1953)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Pete Smith short takes a look at people who do strange jobs that most wouldn't even try. These jobs include trapeze artists, a man and wife horseshoe throwers, a woman and horse who dive fifty-feet into water, high jumpers and various other strange jobs. As with a lot of Smith shorts, this one is entertaining throughout but there's certainly nothing overly special about it about. The movie is mildly fun do to the strange things we see but we really don't learn anything about the people doing the strange jobs or why they are being done. This is worth viewing if you can catch it on Turner Classic Movies but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find it.

"This is a Living?" is an MGM short featuring film clips of lots of different dangerous jobs. For the most part, the jobs are acrobatic in nature--such as high wire acts, acrobatics, trapeze artists and the like. Some of the clips might have been from the 1950s but judging by the hair and fashions, it's clear MGM raiding their vast vaults and used a lot of clips from the 1930s.

Like all the other Pete Smith Specialty shorts I've seen before this one, the worst thing about this one is Smith's narration. He talks non-stop and often the narration seemed more distracting than helpful. A clear case where more is much less. As far as the clips go, they were rather impressive and clearly spoke for themselves. Overall, worth seeing but far from a must-see short.