Re: Great trailers on disc

From: David P. Hayes
Date: 1997/10/04
Newsgroups: alt.video.laserdisc

In article <875550087.27264@dejanews.com>,  support@digitainment-stores.com wrote:
>
> What are some of the best movie trailers that are available on disc?
>
> Preferably, I'm looking for trailers that contain footage shot *only*
> for the trailer (like Hitchcock's PSYCHO trailer), but any good trailer
> will do.
>
> Many thanks in advance,
>
> Sparky Barnes
>

The trailer for "The Birds" is almost entirely original footage, being of Hitchcock addressing the audience in a funny, sardonic mock lecture.  It is on the LD.  The same disc set also has the trailer for "Rope," which ALSO contains unique footage (Jimmy Stewart addressing the audience in character, and the murder victim and his fiancee having a conversation PRIOR to the events shown in the movie.  In the movie itself, the victim is killed before we ever see the fiancee.

Hitchcock made a special trailer for "Rear Window" with Stewart again addressing the audience in character, telling us what his character discovers in the story. (Clips from the movie are cut in as Stewart's  voiceover continues to directly address the audience.)Unfortunately, although A trailer for "Rear Window" is included with "The Birds," it's not this trailer but rather a conventional one of just scenes from the  movie.I don't know whether any trailer for "Rear Window" is on the disc for that film itself.

The trailer for "The Fountainhead" (on the disc for that film) has some alternate footage with the same dialogue.  The same is true of "Love Finds Andy Hardy" (medium shots in place of long shots or vice versa).  The trailer for "Young Thomas Edison" has a different take for the song "Sweet Genevieve."  Both of these Mickey Rooney films are on disc with the trailers described.

"The Wizard of Oz" is a special case.  The "Ultimate Oz" box contains several trailers and the still-frame commentary on the disc points out some of the differences between the feature and the trailers: a mass celebration over the death of the evil witch was shot for and deleted for the film, but a brief bit showing some of the spendid pangentry made it to some of the trailers.  Another trailer, made earlier for only the Cairo Theater, uses an alternate take of "Over the Rainbow."

"The Maltese Falcon" had one trailer where Sidney Greenstreet addresses the audience about the deaths attributable to the Falcon.  This trailer has been shown on TCM, but in that a conventional trailer was also made, I don't know which (if any) was on the LD.

"All About Eve" has Bette Davis as Bette Davis discussing her part.  This is on the remastered LD.

"Midsummer's Night Dream" on LD has SEVEN trailers, and only one of them is conventional.  The rest have one or more of the actors addressing the audience with a pitch to see the movie. One trailer has Joe E. Brown (who was in the movie) talking with Pat O'Brien (who WASN'T in the pic) about Shakespeare.

The trailer for "Mammy" has Al Jolson talking to a reporter about the  movie.This is on the Jolson box set.The same set has a trailer for "The Singing Kid" which has a group of singing girls rhapsodizing about the movie before the trailer goes to the usual group of scenes, wipes and superimposed blurbs.  (Two other trailers are on the set, but I don't think either of them have unique footage.)

Woody Allen's "Bananas" had a trailer where Allen spoke to a reporter that the film was rated "J" so that it could only be seen by Jews and those accompanied by them.  Neither this trailer nor any other for the film is on the LD set with "Love and Death," despite the package stating that the trailers for both were included ("Love and Death"'s trailer was included, but has no unique footage.)

Unique footage in trailers goes back at least as far as Buster Keaton's "The Navigator" (1922).  A scene that got a big laugh in the trailer failed to get one in the feature film, during which audiences were annoyed at the delay that the gag had upon the character addressing the crisis in the story.  (This trailer may not even exist anymore--I've never seen it listed anywhere.)

"Invisible Ghost" has some dialogue in the trailer that explains a situation where in the feature the context established the scene well enough that the dialogue wasn't necessary and apparently therefore cut.  This film and its trailer are in the "Lugosi/Karloff Box" from Roan Group.

Along the same lines, the LD for "Dames" contains a promotional short for the feature (this is a one-reel short, much longer than a regular trailer) wherein visitors to the Warner Bros. studio are allowed to see "rehearsals" of the film.  In some instances, these are actual scenes from the movie, but in one case, we see a song from the movie being such on a different set than that song is sung on in the feature--the set shown in the short was a set used for a different song in the feature, but not the song shown in the short.

 

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