In 1961 Roger Corman took a flyer from his exploitation roots and made one from the heart, from Charles Beaumont's angry novel inspired by the rabble-rousing exploits of Southern racist John Kasper. When exhibitors refused to book it, Corman returned to Edgar Allan Poe and the movie disappeared into grindhouse hell under titles like Shame and I Hate Your Guts. William Shatner stars, but Corman's first choice was...Tony Randall!
Jack Clayton's masterpiece, one of the greatest cinematic ghost stories, is ill-served by this lowbrow trailer that sells it like a cheap Eurotrash import. Film debut of the lovely and talented Pamela Frankin.
Giant monster specialist Bert I. Gordon's only somewhat improved followup to "King Dinosaur" was shot in 1955 but didn't make it to theaters til 1957, on a double bill with Ulmer's "Daughter of Dr. Jekyll", satisfying only the fans of pert starlet Gloria Talbott, who starred in both.
Credited to Stanley Kubrick, taking over from Anthony Mann (whose casting choices appear in abundance), this troubled epic from revered Lefties Dalton Trumbo and Howard Fast has become a touchstone of 60s cinema and for good reason -- it's less pious and more honestly moving than the comparatively overblown Ben-Hur.
Howard Hawks' riposte to the likes of "High Noon" and "3:10 to Yuma" is one of the great Movie Star Westerns, cannily targeted at every demographic available.
Edgar has his own thoughts on the very different American trailer that accompanied the US release of Argento's classic.
"Psycho" spawned a cottage industry of twist-ending killer-thrillers, and this modest Hammer entry is one of the best. Psycho's unconventional ad campaign also led to gambits like this one, pretending the movie was just too scary to show any actual footage in the trailer!
Another elaborate personalized Hitchcock trailer. His "sex mystery" followup to The Birds has its adherents, but Larry Cohen isn't one of them. Nice Bernard Herrmann score though, and the star of Family Plot has a supporting role.
Terence Fisher returns to direct the first (and best?) of six sequels to the groundbreaking Curse of Frankenstein, bringing new complexity and plenty of gallows humor to the character of Baron Frankenstein, the alternately malevolent and admirable protagonist whose grand experiments just never seem to work out.
Renowned for the flying brains and sputtering gore of its final reel, this British sci-fi set in Canada has maintained semi-classic status over the decades despite the fact that it's actually pretty uneventful.
Comic director Blake Edwards revisits his noir roots in this 1962 suspense classic cannily filmed on San Francisco locations. One of the biggest hits of the early 60s. And one of the most unusual trailers.
For his third outing as a director, cinematographer Nicolas Roeg came up with this sublimely creepy adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier story shot on location in Venice. The simultaneous release of "The Exorcist" took some of the wind out of its sails in the US, but it's now considered a horror classic.
A satirical labor of love from animator Charles Swenson that ended up vying with "Fritz the Cat" for X-rated grindhouse playing time. There's a lot of wit and imagination on view, but hardly anyone ever saw the picture.
Low-budget auteur Edgar G. Ulmer, who gave us "Detour" and "Man from Planet X" proves you can't win 'em all with this derivative and nonsensical second-feature set in the 1800s, but shot in a Hancock Park mansion through whose windows 1957 cars can be seen driving by.
Take the "D-13 Test" to find out if you're too crazy to see this shot-in-Ireland axe murder thriller from fledgling director Francis Ford Coppola. The gorgeous Luana Anders has one of her infrequent leads here, and Ronald Stein's score is one of his best.
Albert Zugsmith's shining moment in an amiably disreputable career that nonetheless included producing pix by Sirk, Welles and Jack Arnold. Only Fu Manchu is missing from this hypnotically retrograde yellow peril hallucination starring Vincent Price and half the Asian actors in Hollywood.
This is the international export trailer for Mario Bava's trend-setting 1971 murder spree, presented entirely in solarized images. This film has had so many titles over the years that we don't have room to list them, but the one that stuck was the brilliant US reissue title "Twitch of the Death Nerve".
The first of eight collaborations between noir specialist Anthony Mann and a newly flinty James Stewart, this psychological western exudes corrosive post-war anxiety. It also trailblazed a groundbreaking profit participation deal (engineered by Stewart's agent Lew Wasserman) that transformed the industry. Dan Duryea shines in a classic bad guy performance that defined his career.
AIP toppers were floored by the unexpectedly positive reviews this lightning-in-a-bottle satire garnered in the volatile political world of 1968. The right movie at the right moment, it captured the mood of a country in crisis and propelled star Christopher Jones into a short-lived mainstream career that included a starring role in David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter".
Sure it's creaky, but this early talkie from poverty row was the first zombie movie and visually it's still pretty cool. Bela Lugosi is the indelibly named Murder Legendre, head zombie master on a Haitian plantation where the dead don't charge for their labor. First takes seem to be the rule, as there are a number of flubbed lines and missed camera moves. This is the 1952 reissue trailer.
Raoul Walsh's most muscular gangster pic with an all-time great James Cagney as Cody Jarrett, the psychotic killer that only a mother could love. She's the underappreciated Margaret Wycherly, brilliant as the most monstrous mom since Agrippina. But she doesn't get much attention in the trailer.
George Pal's pioneering H.G. Wells adaptation updates the action to 1953 Los Angeles, with Oscar-winning state-of-the-art visual fx and sound effects so great they're still in use today.
George Pal's greatest work finds the humanity in H.G. Wells' classic, ably served by Oscar-winning fx, Russ Garcia's memorable score and Rod Taylor and Alan Young's warm performances. A touchstone for a generation. Paul Frees seems quite enthusiastic about it!
The US trailer for Mario Bava's ecological killing field tries to talk us out of seeing the movie!
One of the bigger interplanetary spectacles of the 50s, and one of the last films shot in 3-strip Technicolor, Universal's "Supreme Excitement of Our Time" brought out the sense of wonder in a generation of cold war tykes while scaring them half to death with the unlikely but cool "Mutants": "similar to the insect life on your own planet, but larger of course."
Nine years after Hiroshima the atomic chicken has come home to roost in the shape of giant ants, soon to be followed by jumbo mutant radioactive lizards, locusts, scorpions, etc. The near-biblical template for the dozens of nuclear monster movies that followed it, this is one of the most influential movies ever.
This 1953 film was a rugged five-character psychological western and the third collaboration between James Stewart and Anthony Mann.
For their 1957 "Silver Jubilee", Universal offered this occasionally accurate biopic of its biggest silent star, Lon Chaney, as portrayed by the always reliable James Cagney.
Long before Gordon Gekko told us "greed is good", Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) embarked on a mad quest to prove that everyone has their price. Terry Southern transforms his cynical novel into a nihilistic lark full of celebrity cameos and Monty Python-esque gags, some contributed by actual soon-to-be Python members.
Philadelphia-born Director Richard Lester sandwiched this wacky paeon to Swinging '60s London between "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!". Based on Ann Jellicoe's play and notable as the fleeting screen debuts of Jacqueline Bissett, Jane Birkin and Charlotte Rampling.
