Ever since I first moved to Atlanta in 1983, one of my favorite fantasies has been to rent the Starlight Drive-in  http://www.starlightdrivein.com/- one of the few remaining drive-ins in the Southeast  – and program all six screens (yes, six screens!) for a private party trailer movie orgy that would run from dusk to dawn. Each screen could be genre specific – art film, exploitation, horror, etc. – but mixing it up would probably be more fun. And in this car park festival under the stars, I would have to include my all-time favorites. There are too many to list here so I’ll just post some highlights.   

At the top of the list would be trailers for LOLITA (1962) and DR. STRANGELOVE (1964), both of which appear to have been cut by the same creative group in terms of their editing and visual style. The imagination and playful quality of these two Stanley Kubrick film trailers perfectly capture the mischievous dark humor and sly wit of both films without ruining any ploy points like the trailers of today. It also makes me miss the sixties when the level of artistry on even something as basic as a movie preview was so much higher and prone to be provocative, thought-provoking, mysterious or just plain wildly eccentric and over-the-top. It’s no coincidence that a lot of my favorite trailers are from the 1960-1972 period.

LOLITA

For a movie about obsession, the trailer couldn’t be more appropriate though the amusing aspect of this one is that EVERYONE appears to be obsessed with Lolita. I like the fact that it’s not just James Mason’s Humbert Humbert who is fixated on Lolita’s physicality. Excellent use of the delightful “Lolita Ya Ya” theme song and it leaves you longing for more. Exactly what a teaser trailer should do. LOLITA, by the way, is airing on TCM on Saturday, August 29 as part of Peter Sellers’ day in their annual “Summer Under the Stars” festival. Even better for Atlanta residents, it’s showing at the Starlight Drive-in on Sunday, August 30 at dusk for only $1.00 a carload.

DR. STRANGELOVE

Like the LOLITA trailer, here is another one that clearly prefigured the manic MTV quick cutting style but adds a unique visual/aural punctuation with large word text and short sound bites from specific characters – “Fluids” exclaims Sterling Hayden’s insane General Ripper, “Ten women for every man” promises Seller’s Dr. Strangelove.  There is even a brief cameo appearance by Kubrick himself, posed with cigar. Brilliant. DR. STRANGELOVE is also airing on TCM this month and will appear on Saturday, August 22nd at 12:30 pm ET as part of Sterling Hayden’s day in the “Summer Under the Stars” festival.

THE LAUGHING WOMAN aka The Frightened Woman (1969)

One of Radley Metzger’s more outlandish and fascinating softcore/art house acquisitions (directed by Piero Schivazappa and released as Gioco d’amore, gioco di morte in its native Italy), this trailer tantalizes and seduces with its Euro-lounge score by Stevio Cipriani and then knocks you over the head with its all too-literal closing shot of implied male castration. Wow. The art direction is something else. Schivazappa’s extreme-for-its-time exploration of human sexuality reflects Metzger’s own sensibilities in both tone and style.

All of Metzger’s trailers from his distribution company Aububon are worth a look but another favorite is THE LICKERISH QUALITY due to the narrator’s dead-serious tone as he reads critical reviews of the film over the sexy imagery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZkFmB__zQg&feature=related

It almost seems like a total put-on but it’s for real baby. “Vincent Canby of the New York Times calls THE LICKERISH QUARTET “a fruitilly beautiful movie preoccupied by the way nude bodies and sexual acts look when photographed sideways, in zoomy long shots, in roaming close-ups, ripe with incredible color and décor and movement.’ Andy Warhol says,  “THE LICKERISH QUARTET is an outrageously kinky masterpiece. Go,” and so on. It’s bound to bring a big smile to your face. Metzger’s unique mix of European jet-set decadence and high class exploitation still has no equal in his particular field.

GENGHIS KHAN (1965)

I was always a sucker for historical spectacles when I was a kid, especially anything set in ancient times such as the Hercules films or movies about the Roman Empire (1959’s Ben-Hur with its thrilling sea battle sequence and the chariot race). Like the latter film, GENGHIS KHAN was obviously intended to be a prestige epic considering the cast, crew and production budget. But once you realize Irving Allen (The Silencers, The Wrecking Crew) was one of the producers, the cheese factor becomes more obvious, especially in the trailer in which the laughable dialogue is given the showcase treatment. It doesn’t matter that Omar Sharif or Stephen Boyd had previously appeared to great acclaim in the epic films Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur, respectively. Name dropping isn’t going to work here. “If my hands were free of this yoke, my hands would still your jackal breath forever,” Boyd snarls as Sharif calls for the guards to “Put this animal back in his cage.” James Mason, in Asian makeup, drops a bit of fortune cookie wisdom after being introduced by the narrator with “James Mason grounds his gallery of unforgettable characters with his wily impersonation of a Chinese ambassador.” And that’s exactly what it is – an impersonation. For once, there is truth in advertising. Eli Wallach in “his most devilish creation,” according to the VO, vows to Boyd that “We will crush this wolf, this thirst after blood, this corruptible defiler of women, this….(desperately searching for the right word or appropriate putdown)….SCAVENGER.” In fact, everyone gets their moment of shame in this 3 minute 25 second preview including Robert Morley and Francoise Dorleac though somehow Telly Savalas and Woody Strode escaped detection. “EIGHT CENTURIES IN THE MAKING” proclaims the trailer copy. This was back when marketers knew their world history. They don’t make’em like they used to.

EMPLOYEES ENTRANCE (1933)

A still potent Pre-Code melodrama with comedic sexual asides about the workplace, this Warner Bros. trailer with a running time of less than three minutes is a concise thumbnail portrait of the boss from hell. It’s probably my favorite Warren William performance, the epitome of the villain you love to hate. Ruthless, manipulative, egocentric, sexist and relentlessly aggressive, he makes bold statements like “My code is smash – or be smashed” and then backs it up with his steamrolling capitalist greed.  It’s practically exhilarating in its honesty about upper management arrogance in a corporate environment, which in this case is a sprawling department store – a “Meeting place of love and hate, hope and despair, joy and tragedy.”

THE TOUCHABLES (1968)

I first saw this in high school in an empty theatre and then went back to see it again the same week, dragging friends along, before it vanished forever after a one week run. It later surfaced on WOR-TV and I was able to capture it on VHS (I’m still holding on to it for nostalgia sake) but it’s more like a plotless happening than a real movie. It is also typical of an era when a lot of virtually unfilmable ideas made it to the screen with the blessings of major studios due to the influence of the counterculture – or should I say the drug culture on the film industry? Donald Cammell (Duffy, Performance) had a hand in the screenplay and you can see his influence with the kinky, decadent ambience on display. There’s a lot of exposed skin, S&M, gangsters, wrestlers, beautiful, sexy women, pop music and wax imitations of Michael Caine, Alfred Hitchcock and other celebrities. I think my infatuation with the film stemmed from the fact that it was pure eye candy and refreshingly aimless, occasionally erupting with moments of real violence or hilarity, and then settling back into a kinky, leisurely paced fantasy about four swinging London “birds” who kidnap a pretty boy rock star (David Anthony) who is also lusted after by a masked black wrestler named Lillywhite (Harry Baird).  I think the trailer with its imagery of geodesic domes, carousel beds, soap bubbles and nun outfits perfectly conveys the fetishistic nature of this pop art trifle.

BLOW-UP (1966)

“Sometimes reality is the strangest fantasy of all,” intones the narrator over a black screen and then a sample of “Stroll On” by the Yardbirds is cranked up as the screen explodes in a series of stills a la Chris Marker’s La Jetee but at a much more frantic pace. I love the fact that not one clip from the movie is used – it’s all static shots – but it conveys a genuine sense of excitement and anticipation even today. Of course, the film, seen in real time, could never hold the attention span of a general audience now, but at the time, people flocked to see it, discussing and analyzing it endlessly at the office water cooler, at parties, everywhere as if it was the latest episode of “Mad Men.”

The trailer for Michelangelo Antonioni’s ZABRISKIE POINT is equally dazzling in its own way using a narrator who sounds both portentous and sinister.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBnBCy3osnE

A BULLET IS WAITING (1954)

Occasionally a trailer can yield unexpected surprises, not so much for its style or approach, but for the simple fact that it reveals the participation of an actor, actress or director you never suspected. Here is, on the surface, a standard action-packed genre approach to a Western drama but instead of the macho hero being the focus, it’s a woman…and she’s played by Jean Simmons. I always thought A BULLET IS WAITING was a Rory Calhoun vehicle and didn’t realize Jean Simmons made any Westerns or that she would even appear at this point in her career in a B movie.  

Obviously made on loan-out to Columbia while she was at 20^th-Century-Fox – she had just completed The Egyptian and would next appear in Desiree -  Simmons has her hands full in this dynamic trailer in which three men try to dominate her – her father (Brian Aherne), a visiting sheriff (Stephen McNally) and his prisoner (Rory Calhoun). I love the unqualified boasting of the VO narrator “One of the screen’s most explosive dramas of overpowering hate, overwhelming desire,” and during the “overwhelming desire” segment we see Jean fighting furiously to avoid being raped by Calhoun. Did he say desire? The “TNT knows Drama” people could learn a thing or two from this barely two minute preview. I want to see this now that I realize that, in addition to Jean Simmons, it was directed by John Farrow and photographed by Franz Planer (Letter From an Unknown Woman, The Big Country), with a music score by Dimitri Tiomkin.

INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957)

Here’s a trailer that tries several approaches in one: Film clips with on-screen descriptor text, sound bites, a voice over narrator and comical sound effects and music.  Of all the teenage horror films of the fifties and there were dozens of them – this is one of the more oddball outings. It takes a whimsical tone which is not typical of an alien invasion picture and serves up a narrator whose reading of the ad copy turns everything into a “Hee Haw” style joke: “All this makes it seem natural for a beer drinking bull to appoint himself (narrator chuckles to himself) chaperone of lovers’ lane…and a farmer with the longest shotgun you’ve ever seen plays the villain.”  What? I think you lost me. The underrated B-movie workhorse Edward L. Cahn directed this appealingly goofy sci-fi throwaway and manages to fuse elements of teen exploitation films, monsters from outer space and Ma and Pa Kettle humor into a delightful coming attraction that runs 2 minutes and three seconds.

DUCK, YOU SUCKER (1971)

Thanks to Wildeast productions, two DVDs of spaghetti Western trailers – A Fistful of Trailers and For a Few Previews More - have been available for some time and include some of the more bizarre and extreme examples of this genre but one of my favorite previews is this well-regarded Sergio Leone epic also known as A Fistful of Dynamite. One of the more appealing buddy movies of the seventies, it pairs a crude, apolitical peasant/bandit and a worldly explosives expert driven by revenge and wounded pride and sets them loose in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The film has a broad, operatic sweep to it and everything is greatly exaggerated on a visual and dramatic level as you can see from the trailer, especially Rod Steiger’s performance. Ennio Morricone’s famous score is the icing on the cake.

A MAN CALLED DAGGER (1967)

A relatively obscure spy thriller released in the wake of the James Bond craze, this MGM release starring Paul Mantee (Robinson Crusoe on Mars) earns extra points for originality – a striptease swordfight with Sue Ane Langdon, a wheelchair bound villain (Jan Murray) wielding a blowtorch in a meat locker –  and pure tastelessness. “He’s a man who gets into some very hot spots,” says the narrator, “and some very tight spots,” with the camera focused intently on a rear view of the wiggling hips of two beach bunnies.

PSYCHIC KILLER (1975)

This eccentric, bad taste horror thriller from actor turned director Ray Danton has a dream cast of has-beens and lots of screaming scenes. Jim Hutton, at one time a wholesome boy-next-door type in slick romantic comedies like Sunday in New York and Where the Boys Are, is decidedly unwholesome in this. “Everything I love dies,” he bemoans in extra thick dark circles-around-the-eyes-makeup.

http://www.trailersfromhell.com/trailers/416

DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE (1975)

Recently made available as a MOD release through Warner Bros., this George Pal fantasy adventure, based on the popular pulp fiction hero, was barely released in 1975. As you can tell from the preview on the “Trailers from Hell” website (link above), the movie has a definite Batman-quality (like the 1966 TV series, not the feature films) and the tone is self-conscious and extremely cheeky, probably too much so since it failed to attract the fan boys. Now it looks like vintage camp. The whistling, militaristic theme song will drive you over the edge. I saw it in a theatre in Bar Harbor, Maine where it preceded Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger and the audience went berserk.    

TOO HOT TO HANDLE (1977)

Remenber Cheri Caffaro? The blonde bimbo action star of the famous “Ginger” series? Ok, maybe it wasn’t that famous but Caffaro, thanks to her director/writer husband Don Schain, inflicted a great deal of enjoyable punishment on 42nd street grindhouse patrons and drive-in viewers in the seventies with her infamous trilogy – GINGER (1971), THE ABDUCTORS (1972), and GIRLS ARE FOR LOVING (1973) – in which she plays a high society gal (a huge credibility stretch) recruited as an undercover agent to bust various crime syndicates. I think her real masterpiece is TOO HOT TO HANDLE in which she plays hit woman Samantha Fox (isn’t that the name of a porno star?) but I’m talking about the trailer, not the movie. I wish I had a link to it because it’s a gem of magnified ineptness. You can enjoy the movie’s true virtues – atrocious acting, ludicrous dialogue, terrible special effects, and sleazy costumes and bad hair – in a mere 3 minutes instead of sitting through the entire movie. To get an idea of Caffaro’s amazing talents, check out her maracas dance from THE ABDUCTORS.

THE MANIPULATOR aka B. J. Lang Presents (1971)

Mickey Rooney has made his share of psychotronic films – Juan Estelrich Jr.’s La Vida Lactea (1992) - http://moviemorlocks.com/2007/12/08/mickey-rooney-as-youve-never-seen-him/and The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) among them – but this one is particularly odd. The Mickster plays a delusional man living in a warehouse full of mannequins who kidnaps, imprisons and torments Luana Anders for the duration of the movie. He starts off bonkers and goes full throttle pretty quickly and it’s a sight to see. The trailer is a lot easier to take than the film which comes across like a very bad off Broadway play directed by someone on acid. Keenan Wynn plays old Charlie. I wish I had a link to the trailer but you can see the whole movie in installments on YouTube.

There are too many more favorite trailers to list but you get the idea. A dusk-to-dawn drive-in marathon of them would be a dream come true and not just my trailer park fantasy. Meanwhile, enjoy another blog by fellow Morlock Keelsetter on trailer reels -

http://moviemorlocks.com/2009/06/28/trailer-reel-14/