Curious Contests (1950) User Reviews

Pete Smith specialty is a collection of oddities...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 13 May 2008]

This should have been "oddities on parade". It begins with the marathon dances where couples began to look like zombies after dancing non-stop to set some sort of record; a diaper derby with hubbies trying to tie the knot; baby races where the crawling kids are egged on by anxious parents; Suomi wrestlers doing their thing and where they "eat like a horse and think like an elephant"; basket carrying contest on heads in Great Britain; a mudfest; bullfighting stunts; log chopping in Spain; water jousting with a fall into the water; old-fashioned bike race; and finally, men racing to see who could put the cat out the fastest and return to bed after running several yards.

It's briskly edited so that all of the acts blend together in quick succession, but really nothing more than an average viewing experience.

What am I missing?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 10 July 2013]

I've seen quite a few Pete Smith shorts and I really cannot understand the appeal of them. MGM made a bunch and the reviews on IMDb are mostly positive but I keep wondering why. The films, to me, just aren't very good and not in the least bit entertaining. What am I missing?! All I know is that I haven't seen one yet that entertained me or made me laugh.

"Curious Contests" consists of lots of old clips from various odd sports. While these clips play, Smith makes a variety of comments that HE thinks are clever...unfortunately, they aren't. Additionally, for added fun(?), they sometimes run the clips forward and backward...not clever and something only little kids might enjoy. Overall, a tired set of old clips complete with annoying narration.

It's disingenuous for anyone to claim to love cats . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 8/10 · 6 March 2019]

. . . if they've never seen CURIOUS CONTESTS. (It would be tantamount to an alleged arsonist being unable to give you a light, or an exterminator showing you his butterfly collection.) CURIOUS CONTESTS requires feline fanciers to sit through several preliminary bouts as it builds up to its Main Event, but if there's one thing for which cat lovers are known, it's their preternatural patience. As the narrator of CURIOUS CONTESTS warms up his audience with marathon dancers, diaper changing tussles, fire fighter spray frays, crawling babies, Sumo wrestlers, gluttons for pie, toppling baskets, muddy coeds, leapers of charging bulls, train wheel twirlers shoeless wood choppers, jousting gondoliers, and big wheel bike racers, viewers sense that the Big Cats are looming just around the corner. Sure enough, when the going gets tough, "Muffy" gets going--along with "Snowball," "Buffy," "Felix," "Fluffy," Paws," "Puffy," "Twinkle-toes," and, of course, "Toughie." The cheerleaders at my high school had a chant when we played the Bengals that went something like this: "Go, Tigers, go! Go, Tigers, go! Off the floor and out the door, Go, Tigers, go!!"