The Pete Smith Specialties are a series of short subject films produced by Pete Smith
for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from the 1930s to the 1950s. Over 150 shorts were produced, winning two Oscars for Live Action Short Film. The shorts were comedic and about a wide variety of subjects.
The shorts often pop up between movies on Turner Classic Movies.
Shorts with Pages
- Swing High (1932)
- Menu (1933)
- Strikes and Spares (1934)
- Audioscopiks (1935)
- La Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1935)
- Wanted—A Master (1936)
- Penny Wisdom (1937)
- Romance of Radium (1937)
- Quicker'n a Wink (1940)
- Army Champions (1941)
- Marines in the Making (1942)
- Seeing Hands (1943)
- Movie Pests (1944)
- You Can't Win (1948)
- Water Trix (1949)
Tropes:
- Camera Tricks: A few of the Pete Smith films concentrated on then-novel camera tricks. Audioscopiks demonstrated 3-D technology; it may have been the first commercially exhibited 3-D movie. Quicker 'n a Wink demonstrated high-speed stroboscopic photography.
- Documentary: A lot of the shorts are non-fiction, more or less.
- Long Runner: The series ran from the 1930s to the 1950s.
- Narrator: The shorts typically contain no dialogue, and are narrated by Pete Smith himself, with a distinctive sarcastic style and nasal tone.
