Here's a couple of minutes from an episode of Erskine Johnson's Hollywood Reel, which was a series of short films that ran in theaters in the late forties and on TV in the early fifties. Mr. Johnson was a Tinsel Town columnist and he was known to haul a 16mm silent camera to events and shoot footage for his films. This one, which he filmed in conjunction with a gent named Coy Watson, was entitled Close Ups and Long Shots and it aired on TV in 1951, though this excerpt was probably filmed a year or three earlier. (Watson had an odd career in movies, working variously as an actor and a director and a cameraman…and he was even a Stage Father. Several of his kids were child actors, including two in the Our Gang series.)
This excerpt takes us to a swimming competition at something called the Brentwood Bantam Club in Brentwood, California. And wait'll you see who's officiating at the event.