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

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
TitleMajor creditsRunning timeRelease, copyright or review dateNotes
Black FuryTed & Vincent Saizis (directors); music: Howard Jackson & William Lava; narrators: John Brown & Marvin Miller32 minutesSeptember 9, 1953Profile of David Da Lie, naturalist and vet in Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia.
Production Report by Jack Warner25 minutesMarch 1955Technically a promotional
You in Italyabout 40 minutes [4]June 1955Made for the U.S. Signal Corps
24 Hour AlertMark VII co-production, Cedric Francis (producer); Robert Leeds (director); music: William Lava; hosted by Jack Webb & Art Balinger31 minutesDecember 22, 1955Profiles jet operations with the US Air Force. Nominee for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film
Chasing the Sunproducer: Cedric Francis; André de la Varre (director); Owen Crump & Charles Tedford (writers); music: Howard Jackson31 minutesFebruary 1956Tour of Miami and Silver Springs, Florida
Deep Adventureproducer: Cedric Francis; Scotty Wellbourn (director); Ross Allen, William Fuller & Dottie Lee Phillips; story: Owen Crump (writer); narrator: Johnny Jacobs46 minutesMay 1957sunken treasure adventure shot in Florida
Forbidden Desertproducer: Cedric Francis; Jackson Winter (director); narrator: Marvin Miller; Rafik Shammas45 minutesDecember 21, 1957travelogue of Saudi Arabia and biography of John Lewis Burckhardt
IsraelLeon Uris (producer); Sam Zebba (director); music: Elmer Bernstein; narrator: Edward G. Robinson30 minutesFebruary 20, 1959CinemaScope travelogue sponsored by the Israel Bond Organization
A Force of ReadinessWilliam L. Hendricks (producer); narrator: Jack Webb26 minutesMay 25, 1961co-produced by the U.S. Marines
The Misery MerchantsCedric Francis (producer); story: William K. Wells29 minutesDecember 1961shot in black & white, documentary for the Arthritis & Rheumatism Foundation
The John Glenn Storyco-produced by National Aeronautics & Space Administration; William L. Hendricks (producer); narrator: Jack Webb30 minutesDecember 1962Nominee for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film
Sea PowerWilliam L. Hendricks (producer)25 minutesSeptember 1964made for the U.S. Marines

See also

References
  • 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
  • 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
  1. "Filmography Short Subjects". Warner Brothers Archive. USC School of Cinematic Arts.
  2. BoxOffice, July 21, 1945, p.7
  3. Blume, Daniel. Screen World Vol. 9, 1958. Biblo & Tannen Publishers, p.166
  4. Liebman, Roy. Vitaphone Films – A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. 2003. McFarland & Company, p. 318 states four reels
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