A Few Warren William Shorts, Includes Unusual Occupations (1938)

It was almost three years ago when I stumbled across one of my most wanted Warren William titles on YouTube — the 1933 General Electric produced short Just Around the Corner, featuring Warren along with Ruth Donnelly, Bette Davis, Dick Powell, and a few other Warner Bros. stars pitching appliances for GE. Earlier this week Ray Faiola, the gentleman who posted the original video to YouTube, left a comment on the site informing Warren-fans that he had uploaded a higher quality version of the same video to YouTube. You’ll find it embedded below:

I’ve also replaced the video found at the bottom of my Just Around the Corner post on the site.

Then, following Ray’s comment, John H. McCarthy—a big Warren-fan, who’s been more active on this site the past couple of years than I have been—dropped in links to several of Warren William’s lesser seen appearances in various shorts.

The most exciting of the bunch, and I’m pretty sure John agrees, was THIS CLIP of Warren’s appearance in Unusual Occupations: L8-3 (1938). Unfortunately, the video is watermarked and cannot be embedded, but it offers one of Warren’s most personal and quirkiest appearances, and in color to boot! I love the bit at the end (I love the whole thing though!) when Warren climbs his bed to take refuge in his chart room, designed like a ship’s interior. At just a hair under two minutes the clip is a bit of a tease, but it’s the most personal footage of Warren I’ve ever seen, even if it is studio publicity. Plus, color!

John also provided links to some of Warren’s other short appearances that, unless you’ve been seeking them out, are likely new to you. My favorite of this bunch comes at 5:35 of this Warner Blooper Reel, where you can hear Warren exclaim, “Playing me for a goddamn sucker!” This link should jump you directly ahead to Warren’s two appearances in the clip (I think both are from Times Square Playboy [1936]), and I’ve also embedded the entire video below.

It’s a few mere seconds, but I don’t recall having seen this bit that John found in A Trip Through a Hollywood Studio (1935). At approximately 5:03 Warren and his Wire Hair Terriers bump into Jean Muir and her Scottie.

Jean Muir appeared alongside Warren William in Bedside, Dr. Monica (both 1934), and The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady (1940).

One clip I had seen before features Warren listening to Clarence Muse sing in Hollywood on Parade, A-12. It begins at approximately 1:09 of this video — the two men have a brief conversation after Muse wraps up his song. Here’s the entire short:

Clarence Muse appeared with Warren in The Woman from Monte Carlo (1932) and more substantially in The Mind Reader (1933).

There are a few others that John mentions in his comment on my Just Around the Corner post, but I think the few above are the best of the lot.

Finally, I have one image to share with you of Warren in less traditional surroundings. I’m not sure I even mentioned it on this site, but late last year I released a book about Helen Twelvetrees. Throughout 2015, I hunted photos of Miss Twelvetrees, but none caught my attention more than this magazine page:

You can click to enlarge that shot, with apologies for my dying scanner’s poor quality.

The particular image probably means more to me than most since it features two of my all-time favorites together for the only time that I know. The caption explains this particular slice in time during 1933, when both actors were on loan from their separate studios to Columbia. Helen Twelvetrees was appearing in My Woman, Warren William in Lady for a Day (which I still haven’t covered here, major oversight!).

I posted a smaller, cropped version of the photo in the sidebar as part of an advertisement for my Twelvetrees book, which you can purchase here.