Warner Featurettes
Warner Featurettes[1] were an imprint for featurettes released by Warner Brothers.
A featurette is a motion picture with a running time between a half hour and 50 minutes in length, too short to be labeled a feature and often considered too long to be labelled a film short.
Warner Brothers released several of these between 1953 and 1964. Although the trade periodicals like Film Daily and BoxOffice (magazine) occasionally listed the two-reel “Warner Specials” (actually Technicolor Specials and Broadway Brevities) as “featurettes”, the term usually applied to Warner shorts lasting a full half hour or longer.
Overview[edit]
A decade earlier, the studio cut down a Technicolor documentary, Pledge to Bataan, initially shown at 54 minutes in 1943, and released it as a 20 minute Technicolor Special on February 3, 1945.[2] At the time, theater exhibitors preferred receiving their short films packaged by series.
By the 1950s, however, the success of Walt Disney and others with such series as the True-Life Adventures made the “extra length” short subject fashionable as a double bill presentation. The terms varied according to references, with a longer than usual Deep Adventure occasionally labeled a feature.[3]
Two titles hosted by Jack Webb of Dragnet (series) fame, 24 Hour Alert and The John Glenn Story, were Academy Award nominees.
Also between 1958 and 1961, Warner Brothers produced four of The Bell Laboratory Science Series for television, but utilizing longtime short film director/writer Owen Crump.
List of titles[edit]
| Title | Major credits | Running time | Release, copyright or review date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Fury | Ted & Vincent Saizis (directors); music: Howard Jackson & William Lava; narrators: John Brown & Marvin Miller | 32 minutes | September 9, 1953 | Profile of David Da Lie, naturalist and vet in Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia. |
| Production Report by Jack Warner | 25 minutes | March 1955 | Technically a promotional | |
| You in Italy | about 40 minutes [4] | June 1955 | Made for the U.S. Signal Corps | |
| 24 Hour Alert | Mark VII co-production, Cedric Francis (producer); Robert Leeds (director); music: William Lava; hosted by Jack Webb & Art Balinger | 31 minutes | December 22, 1955 | Profiles jet operations with the US Air Force. Nominee for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film |
| Chasing the Sun | producer: Cedric Francis; André de la Varre (director); Owen Crump & Charles Tedford (writers); music: Howard Jackson | 31 minutes | February 1956 | Tour of Miami and Silver Springs, Florida |
| Deep Adventure | producer: Cedric Francis; Scotty Wellbourn (director); Ross Allen, William Fuller & Dottie Lee Phillips; story: Owen Crump (writer); narrator: Johnny Jacobs | 46 minutes | May 1957 | sunken treasure adventure shot in Florida |
| Forbidden Desert | producer: Cedric Francis; Jackson Winter (director); narrator: Marvin Miller; Rafik Shammas | 45 minutes | December 21, 1957 | travelogue of Saudi Arabia and biography of John Lewis Burckhardt |
| Israel | Leon Uris (producer); Sam Zebba (director); music: Elmer Bernstein; narrator: Edward G. Robinson | 30 minutes | February 20, 1959 | CinemaScope travelogue sponsored by the Israel Bond Organization |
| A Force of Readiness | William L. Hendricks (producer); narrator: Jack Webb | 26 minutes | May 25, 1961 | co-produced by the U.S. Marines |
| The Misery Merchants | Cedric Francis (producer); story: William K. Wells | 29 minutes | December 1961 | shot in black & white, documentary for the Arthritis & Rheumatism Foundation |
| The John Glenn Story | co-produced by National Aeronautics & Space Administration; William L. Hendricks (producer); narrator: Jack Webb | 30 minutes | December 1962 | Nominee for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film |
| Sea Power | William L. Hendricks (producer) | 25 minutes | September 1964 | made for the U.S. Marines |
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- Liebman, Roy (2003). Vitaphone Films – A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786412792.
- Motion Pictures 1950-1959 Catalog of Copyright Entries 1960 Library of Congress [1]
- Motion Pictures 1960-1969 Catalog of Copyright Entries 1971 Library of Congress
- BoxOffice back issue scans (release date information in multiple issue “Shorts Charts”)
Notes[edit]
- ^ "Filmography Short Subjects". Warner Brothers Archive. USC School of Cinematic Arts.
- ^ BoxOffice, July 21, 1945, p.7
- ^ Blume, Daniel. Screen World Vol. 9, 1958. Biblo & Tannen Publishers, p.166
- ^ Liebman, Roy. Vitaphone Films – A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. 2003. McFarland & Company, p. 318 states four reels