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Goofy Movies Number Two (1934) Online

Goofy Movies Number Two (1934) Online
1934 Pete Smith Billy Bletcher
Original Title :
Goofy Movies Number Two
Genre :
Movie / Comedy / Short
Year :
1934
Cast :
Pete Smith,Billy Bletcher
Type :
Movie
Time :
10min
Rating :
5.8/10

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A satire on movie newsreels combines with humorous narration of silent screen footage in this one reel comedy short.

Goofy Movies Number Two (1934) Online

This "whole show on one reel" starts with a Wotaphony Newsreel. One of the three news events shows Columbus discovering America. Following this is a spoof of coming-attraction trailers. Last is a film from Super-Titanic Pictures: "The Perils of Arsenic Annie." The excerpts from an unidentified silent movie bear no relation to the accompanying narration.
Complete credited cast:
Pete Smith Pete Smith - Narrator (voice)

Included as an extra on Warner Bros. DVD of 'Manhattan Melodrama' in TCM Spotlight's 5-film 'Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection'.


User reviews

Fesho

Fesho

In 1934, MGM produced ten shorts in the "Goofy Movies" series. This is the second. It's a burlesque of newsreels, with a cut down movie from the 1910s, with Pete Smith offering a commentary in his snarky style. Your enjoyment of it will depend on your appreciation of 1930s humor, and of Pete Smith.

I enjoy Smith a lot. He entered the movie business as a writer for movie magazines, then went to work for Paramount as a publicity man. He worked for Marshall Neilan for a while, but by 1925, he was head of publicity for MGM. With the coming of sound, he switched to narrating MGM shorts and producing them for the company. He picked up two Oscars for best short subjects through his retirement in 1954. He died in 1979, 86 years old.

The greater part of each GOOFY MOVIE consisted of the movie cutdown, in which Pete's comments offered a silly plot for the goings-on and he pointed out the actual foolishness of the movie. Unlike similar efforts from Warner Brothers, his points are accurate and his voicing offers a lot of humor in itself.
The Rollers of Vildar

The Rollers of Vildar

This MGM short is an example of extra items the Hollywood studios would tack onto their feature films. Cartoons were the most popular and continued into the 1960s. These separately made little featurettes were on their way out by the 1940s.

This one, "Goofy Movies #2," pokes fun at some silent movies in a newsreel format. Everything is fiction in "Wataphony Newsreel." The spoof here is of a make-believe 1909 film by make-believe Super Titanic Pictures. It presents the make-believe "The Perils of Arsenic Annie, or, A Revolver, a High Cliff and You."

I don't know what actual silent film the clip is taken from, and the IMDb Web page doesn't otherwise indicate that or show a cast. But in this snippet, a bad guy named Jake kidnaps a girl. After a big shoot- out when no one gets shot, the good guys break in to rescue the damsel. Jake's arm is hit just as he is about to shoot the damsel. He fires into the ground, but acts as though he shot himself. The script card reads, "No one else could shoot Jake, so he had to shoot himself."

Maybe it was very funny back in the 1930s, but I doubt it. One can see why these type of extras or time fillers would soon be dropped by the studios.