HWOF

In a publicity photo, an unsuspecting Pete Smith is stalked by Ed Payson’s Frankenstein

Source: frankensteinia.blogspot.com

Pete Smith (born Peter Schmidt September 4, 1892, New York City – January 12, 1979, Santa Monica, California) was a film producer and narrator of “short subject” films from 1931 to 1955.

Smith was a publicist at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who was recruited to overdub the actions of trained dogs in
the studio’s “Dogville” comedies. Smith’s speaking voice was distinctively nasal, and he would go on to narrate the studio’s sports reels. Smith would embellish the action by running certain scenes in reverse or adding his own pungent commentary. Both the studio and the moviegoing public picked up on Smith’s flair for comedy, and soon he had his own series, Pete Smith Specialties.

Smith made more than 150 shorts, almost all of which were comedy documentaries. They were made as filler material for MGM’s cinema exhibition packages, which typically consisted of a feature film, a B-movie or a serial, plus one or two “short subjects” of various types, such as animated cartoons, newsreels and documentaries. The Smith shorts were typically 9 to 11 minutes long, shot in black-and-white, with many of the laughs generated by the highly ironic voice-over narration delivered by Smith himself. (His somewhat nasal, matter-of-fact idiosyncratic vocal style has been imitated and parodied by many.)

• Born: Peter Schmidt September 4, 1892, New York City, New York
• Died: January 12, 1979, Santa Monica, California (Aged 86)
• Occupation: Film Producer and Narrator

Read more about Pete Smith at Wikipedia or at the Internet Movie Database