Production company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | ||
Characters Adolph Hitler, Bubbles LaRue, Lt. Kim, Miss Mullens Directors Hal Roach, Richard Thorpe, LeRoy Prinz Cast Joe Sawyer, William Tracy, William Bendix, ZaSu Pitts, Noah Beery Jr Movies All‑American Co‑Ed, Tanks a Million, Niagara Falls, Miss Polly, Dudes Are Pretty People | ||
Hal Roach's Streamliners were a series of featurette comedy films created by Hal Roach that were longer than a short subject and less than a feature film not exceeding 50 minutes in length. Twenty of the twenty-nine features that Roach produced for United Artists were in the streamliner format. They usually consisted of five 10-minute reels.
Contents
History
Roach's studio initially produced comedy short subjects but by 1935 sensed that short subjects were on the way out. As the double feature format for cinemas was then popular, when Roach began producing films for United Artists he came up with the idea of a short-length film he called streamliners after the public's infatuation with the then modern and fast streamliner trains. The short length gave more room for part of a double-feature program.
The price of a streamliner was set at $110,000; with four streamliners being able to be produced for the cost of one feature film, yet profits would bring an estimated 50 to 75% more than a single feature.
Wartime Streamliners
Note that Roach's Laurel and Hardy film A Chump at Oxford was released in the United States at 42 minutes, but was not produced as a "streamliner" per se. Extra scenes were shot for an overseas release of 63 minutes.
World War II interrupted Roach's Hollywood film production, with Hal Roach Studios used for training films ("Camp Roach").
Postwar Streamliners
In 1947 Roach created Hal Roach's Comedy Carnival as a feature by compiling two (dissimilar) streamliners, Curley and The Fabulous Joe. Another attempt at a compiled feature was Lafftime, combining Here Comes Trouble and Who Killed Doc Robbin?. Likewise, but with more continuity, in 1948 Roach and director Kurt Neumann re-cut the feature-length Two Knights from Brooklyn out of Two Mugs from Brooklyn and Taxi, Mister.
The Tracy and Sawyer team would reappear in two films produced by Hal Roach Jr., back in the army in the midst of the Korean War: As You Were (1951) and Mr. Walkie Talkie (1952), released by Lippert Pictures.
The visionary but financially ailing Roach soon turned his studios over to television show production in 1949 beginning with Fireside Theater.