Water Trix is a 1949 short film (ten minutes) directed and photographed by Charles Trego.
It is one of the Pete Smith Specialties, a long-running series of live-action shorts produced by Pete Smith. Like many of the Pete Smith shorts, it is a documentary about an unusual subject. This one shows the talents of Preston Peterson, who was, in his day, one of the most famous surfers alive. The film shows Peterson doing a series of tricks on skis. Peterson straddles a log drifting in the water and loops in and out of a line of rocks. He also does a series of tricks with female stunt skiers, including one stunt where Peterson rides with two women on a single water ski, another stunt where a woman stands on his head, and a remarkable stunt where he catches a woman in midair, while skiing, after she leaps from a boat.
Tropes:
- Documentary: Many of the Pete Smith shorts were documentaries of a sort, like this one, in which talented water skiers do stunts for the camera.
- Fanservice Extra: The various unnamed, shapely women doing stunts, both by themselves and with Peterson. As one woman poses on the boat in what for 1949 a pretty daring swimsuit, Smith wonders in his narration how Peterson could maintain his concentration.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Deliberately invoked. As a woman balances precariously on Peterson's head, Smith says "They can do this for hours and hours." Right after that she falls off and he says "Correction: minutes and minutes."
- Lemony Narrator: Pete Smith was always doing corny narration, but this is one of the more extreme examples. He sets up cinematographer Charles Trego getting into the helicopter, then spends an inordinate amount of time wondering if he should call him "Mr. Trego" or "Charles". Finally, he says, "I'm supposed to fill in with words here, so, ya got words!"
- Narrator: Pete Smith doing his usual banter in his nasal drawl, talking nonstop for the entire short.
- P.O.V. Cam: The film shows Peterson skiing right over a floating log, one ski to each side. Then Smith says, "We'll show you how it looks to a frog on a log," and the film cuts to a camera that was obviously placed on the log, showing Peterson zoom right over it.
- Pun: Smith makes a comment about "Pete's skis," then says "Pete's skis? Sounds Russian!"
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: It's not Water Tricks, because that would be lame. It's Water Trix.
