Pete Smith

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.

An attempt to explain the economic cycle of inflation and unemployment.

The story of the short film from the beginning of the movies in the 1890s, when all movies were shorts, through the 1950s when short subjects virtually disappeared from theaters.

In this Pete Smith Speciality, the audience is asked a series of multiple-choice questions on various subjects.

An examination of the problem of the house guest who has overstayed is welcome, and how to get rid of him.

La Fiesta de Santa Barbara is a 1935 American comedy short film directed by Louis Lewyn. It was nominated for an Academy Award at the 9th Academy Awards in 1936 for Best Short Subject (Color). It features a young, pre-stardom 13-year-old Judy Garland singing "La Cucaracha" with her two sisters (billed as "The Garland Sisters"). In the film, 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 Buster Keaton, and musical numbers are provided by Joe Morrison and The Garland Sisters. Comedy bits and dance numbers are also featured.

This Pete Smith Specialty short provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Ice Capades practices with ice skating favorites of the time.

A dog accused of murdering sheep is brought to trial.

An off-camera narrator takes us through various scenarios of "just suppose". First we watch what would happen if a private detective behaved at home as he does in the movies; it's a ticket to a domestic disturbance. Next, a son gets to treat his father the way his father treats him. In the third episode, to a shopkeeper's chagrin, a man shops for a hat the way a woman does. In the final sketch, we suppose a household in which the man gets pregnant and has a baby, while the mom, clueless about little children, is the one with the career.

A "Pete Smith Specialty" - a fairly serious look at radio hams in the usual jokey format. Shows aircraft using morse code.

With Pete Smith providing dry off-screen commentary, we watch some serious fishing: a marlin caught near Catalina, a hammerhead shark caught then wrestled in a small rowboat near Baja, the largest (721 pounds) great white shark caught to date in California waters, Chinook Indians catching salmon at Celilo Falls in Oregon - each with his designated place on the river where his ancestors stood, and, last, a crew on a boat off Mexico hoisting and hurling tuna using unbarbed hooks (baited only with a feather) as fast as they can as long as the school is there - backbreaking work - but a $25,000 catch.

In this Pete Smith Specialty short, a friendly do-gooder's good deeds backfire.

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.

A chef helps a housewife cook a duck dinner that will not give her husband indigestion.

A "Pete Smith Specialty" short that looks at legendary movie stuntman Harry Woolman planning and rehearsing stunts for films.

Swing High is a 1932 American Pre-Code short documentary film directed by Jack Cummings. In 1932, it was nominated for an Academy Award at the 5th Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Novelty). The film documents The Flying Codonas, a family of flying trapeze artists.

After the audience is instructed how to use the 3-D glasses they received, demonstrations of three-dimensional films are presented. Various objects move towards the camera, including a ladder being shoved out a window, the slide on a trombone, a woman on a swing, and a thrown baseball.

A humorous look at various circus and other acrobatic feats. One of the "Pete Smith Specialties" produced and narrated by "A Smith named Pete."

This Pete Smith Specialty short focuses on the young men who have signed up for the U.S. Army. The film uses the analogy of the speed, accuracy, and teamwork of sports and how these qualities are translated into the weapons training of American soldiers. We watch target practice by Army personnel with shoulder weapons, mortars, and various artillery pieces.

This humorous Pete Smith Specialty short looks around various studios on a film lot.

In this Pete Smith Specialty short, we see how real-life investigator Jo Goggin used a motion picture surveillance camera to gather evidence and disprove a fraudulent insurance claim.

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)

This Pete Smith Specialty shows newsreel footage events that live up to the title. They include, among others, a diaper derby (the father who puts a diaper on his child fastest wins), a fireman's ball (two teams of fire fighters use high-pressure water hoses to move a large ball to score goals), and a basket race (men run a footrace while balancing a "tower" of ten baskets on their heads).

This short film presents several athletes preparing for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

The original concept of the show was to allow the viewer to see the inner workings of a movie studio and featured interviews with MGM stars and explanations of how movies were made. Later, the format changed to show edited versions of MGM films.