Topic summary
Two-reel
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Short film.
Two-reel comedies and serials
The year 1938 proved to be a turning point in the history of film comedies. Hal Roach, for example, had discontinued all short-subject production except Our Gang, which he finally sold to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1938. The Vitaphone studio, owned by Warner Bros., discontinued its own line of two-reel (20-minute) comedies in 1938; Educational Pictures did as much that same year, owing to its president Earle W. Hammons unsuccessfully entering the feature-film field. With these major comedy producers out of the running, Columbia Pictures actually expanded its own operations and launched a second two-reel-comedy unit in 1938.