World Wide Adventures
World Wide Adventures is a generalized name applied to Warner Bros. live-action short films of the 1960s. Usually, the trade magazines like BoxOffice only listed the one-reelers (running about 10 minutes in length) under this heading, with the longer films simply dubbed “specials.” For the most part, this was a handy marketing logo for a wide range of shorts of the documentary genre.
Overview
Although the studio sharply curtailed theatrical “live-action” shorts production by 1957, a selective number of featurettes and independent films were distributed along with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated cartoons as material shown before the main feature. By this time it was more profitable to re-release older films rather than make new ones, but theater owners expected a few “new” offerings each year. (At least one of their rivals, Universal Pictures, continued a consistent schedule of both live-action and animated short subjects through 1972.)
While the bulk were independent travelogues, the in-house producers Cedric Francis and William L. Hendricks (famous for the final cartoons featuring Daffy Duck and Cool Cat) supervised a few themselves.
Despite being largely forgotten over the decades, a handful have enjoyed a second life as “extras” between main features on Turner Classic Movies, particularly such titles as Kingdom of the Saguenay and See Holland Before It Gets Too Big.
List of titles
Since the live-action short subjects made during this period seldom received proper coverage in periodicals and reference books, this chronological listing is incomplete in its information:
Marketed as "World Wide Adventures" or "Specials"
| Title | Major credits | Running time | Release date | Filming location / notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Touch of Gold | Hamilton Wright | 9 minutes | October 1962 | South Africa |
| Fabulous Mexico | Hamilton Wright | 9 minutes | October 1962 | Mexico |
| Moroccan Rivieras | Hamilton Wright (producer); Richard Wright (director) | 9 minutes | February 1963 | Morocco |
| Wish and Ticino | André de la Varre | 9 minutes | September 21, 1963 | Switzerland |
| A Look at Log Island | (Crest Productions) | 9 minutes | October 1963 | Stockholm, Sweden |
| With Their Eyes on the Stars | Cedric Francis (producer); music: John Stewart & the Ridgerunners | 17 minutes | February 1, 1964 | documentary on US history (for North American Aviation) |
| Kingdom of the Saguenay | Douglas Sinclair | 9 minutes | February 1, 1964 | Québec |
| Report from San Juan | (Delta Film International); David Ahlers (producer) | 17 minutes | August 8, 1964 | Puerto Rico |
| Cheyenne Autumn Trail | (Professional Film Services); Ronald Saland (director); Burt Sloane (writer); Ross Lowell (camera); Howard Kuperman (editor) | 18 minutes | October 1964 | partly a promotional for Cheyenne Autumn |
| Metropolis in Miniature | (J & F Productions) | 9 minutes | 1964 (independent release); September 1965 (Warner release) | Hershey, Pennsylvania |
| A Free People | William L. Hendricks (producer) | 20 minutes | March 1965 | Various locations in the US, for the US Army |
| A Country Reborn | 9 minutes | October 1965 | Taiwan | |
| The Land We Love | William L. Hendricks (producer); Raymond Massey & Hubert Humphrey (narrator/hosts) | 18 minutes | February 1966 | Made for U.S. savings bonds |
| Bolivia- The Last Frontier | Hamilton Wright (producer); narrator: Andre Baruch | 18 minutes | August 1966 | Bolivia |
| Hollywood Star-Spangled Revue | William L. Hendricks (producer) | 10 minutes | September 17, 1966 | Hollywood, made for U.S. savings bonds with Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, James Stewart, Herb Alpert, the Rockettes, Carlyn Jones & Joanie Sommers |
| The Fastest Automobile in the World | 9 minutes | November 5, 1966 | Bob and Bill Summers (car builder) testing the Goldenrod (car) in Bonneville Salt Flats | |
| Where in the World? | Hamilton Wright (producer) | 10 minutes | November 30, 1966 | |
| Precision | (National Film Board of Canada); George Dufaux | 10 minutes | 1966 (Canada); December 30, 1967 (Warner release) | |
| Holiday Afloat | 10 minutes | February 15?, 1967 | ||
| Motion (Man In Motion / La Mouvement) | April 1967 (Expo 67); February 1, 1969 (Warner release) | |||
| Sky Over Holland (Ciels de Haollande) | John Fernhout | 22 minutes | May 1967 (Cannes Film Festival); April 30, 1968 (Warner release) | 70mm views of Netherlands |
| 33 Fathoms Deep (33 Fathoms Plus) | Robert J. Ellsworth | 17 minutes | July 1967 (independent release); February 12, 1968 (Warner release) | Bob Croft and others diving in Florida |
| Le Pecheur a l'Ecoute (Fisherman's Fall) | (National Film Board of Canada); Robert Nichol (director) | 16 minutes | 1967 (Canada release); November 23, 1968 (Warner release) | |
| Claybirds Are Coming | Hamilton Wright (producer) | 9 minutes | February 21, 1968 | |
| Newfoundland's Fighting Fish | 16 minutes | March 2, 1968 | Canadian import | |
| Rolling Down the Rhine | (Crest Productions) | 9 minutes | March 23, 1968 | Switzerland, Austria & Germany |
| Tower | (Seneca Productions / Allied Chemical Corporation) | 9 minutes | April 27, 1968 | |
| Sea and Ski (From Sea to Ski) | 18 minutes | November 2, 1968 | ||
| Big John | Art Mayer | 9 minutes | February 8, 1969 | |
| See Holland Before It Gets Too Big | (Netherlands National Tourist Office); Norman Weissman (director); Robert Klinkert (camera); Dan Barrie (music) | 11 minutes | April 5, 1969 | Netherlands |
| Upwind Down Under | Art Mayer | 9 minutes | April 12, 1969 | sailing off Sydney, Australia |
| Season In Tyrol | William L. Hendricks (producer); Kurt Jetmar (director); Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (narrator) | 19 minutes | June 14, 1969 | Austria |
| Freedom Road | (Mattco Associates) | 17 minutes | July 5, 1969 | |
| Harry, Come Sail with Me | Hamilton Wright (producer) | 10 minutes | August 23, 1969 | |
| Annabel Lee: Story by Edgar Allan Poe | Ron Morante; Vincent Price (narrator) | 10 minutes | November 22, 1969 | |
| The Lemmings | Mark Obenhaus[1] | 10 minutes | November 22, 1969 | |
| One Giant Leap | (North America Rockwell Corporation and NASA);[2] narrator: Gordon MacRae | 18 minutes | March 28, 1970 | profiles Apollo 11 |
| A Walk Through the Sounds of Switzerland | (Swiss National Tourist Office); André de la Varre Jr. (director) | 9 minutes | July 1, 1970 | Switzerland |
Assorted later shorts distributed by Warner Bros.
| Title | Major credits | Running time | Release date | Filming location / notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Karmon-Israeli Dancers And Theodore Bikel[3] | (Zavala-Riss Productions) | 25 minutes | January 1972 | filmed 1970 |
| Jungle Habitat | 9 minutes | March 19, 1973 | profiles a theme park | |
| An American Partnership[4] | William L. Hendricks (producer); narrator: William Conrad | 13 minutes | 1974 | Made for U.S. savings bonds |
| Free Enterprise [5] | William L. Hendricks (producer); Hal Greer; narrator: Efrem Zimbalist Jr. | 15 minutes | 1975 |
Notes
References
- Liebman, Roy Vitaphone Films – A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts 2003 McFarland & Company
- Motion Pictures 1960-1969 Catalog of Copyright Entries 1971 Library of Congress
- Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series Volume 24, Parts 12-13, Number 1: Motion Pictures and Filmstrips 1970 Library of Congress
- Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series Volume 25, Parts 12-13, Number 1: Motion Pictures and Filmstrips 1971 Library of Congress
- Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series Volume 27, Parts 12-13, Number 1: Motion Pictures 1973 Library of Congress