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6.5/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.5/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Sports Slants #8 remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have ten minutes to spare and love looking at how weirdly people behaved in the 1930s, this is a neat little time capsule. 🐕
But if you need things like "plot" or "character development" to stay awake, you should probably go watch something else. Maybe The Signal Tower if you want some actual vintage drama.
This is Sports Slants #8, a tiny reel about greyhound racing and people jumping off insanely high platforms.
It starts with the dogs.
They show the pre-race routine, where some guy in a suit inspects the dogs' paws like he's looking for smuggled diamonds. The dogs look incredibly confused but very polite.
Then the race happens, and it is over in about four seconds.
The camera can barely keep up with them, which actually makes it feel faster than it probably was. Also, the announcer has that super fast, tinny voice that makes everything sound like a national emergency.
"And they're off!" he yells, sounding like he just drank five cups of coffee.
After the dogs, we suddenly teleport to a massive swimming pool. There is absolutely no transition at all.
Some guy named Pete Desjardins (the 1928 Olympic champion, apparently) does a few dives. He looks incredibly graceful, even with the grainy footage making him look like a ghost floating through the air.
But then things get wild.
Two guys decide that diving from normal heights is for losers. One guy climbs up 94 feet, and the other guy climbs up to 134 feet.
That is basically jumping off a ten-story building into a backyard pool.
The platform at the top is so small his toes are literally hanging off the edge. When he jumps, the camera tracking him is super shaky.
You can almost feel the cameraman panicking trying to keep him in the frame. He hits the water with a massive splash, and for a second, you wonder if he actually survived.
Spoiler: he did. He swims over to the edge looking totally chill.
There is a weird charm to these old shorts. They don't try to explain anything, they just show you some cool stuff and get out.
It is a shame they don't make weird little filler reels like this anymore before movies. Anyway, it's short, it's goofy, and those high dives are genuinely terrifying to watch.
