The Cult of AGFA Trailer Show

Having worked in the movie theater business for ten years (1991-2001) mainly as a film projectionist, I always made a point of saving as much film as I could. Studios asked that movie trailers be sent back but that was rarely enforced; some theaters simply threw them in the dumpsters when they were done playing. On the other hand, I saved one of every trailer that came in, keeping never-used ones whenever possible. The first theater I worked at had enough class not to show commercials, but my last year was spent at a chain that showed many of them and I kept those as well. One night after hours, I put together close to four hours' worth of previews (the longest amount of film that would fit on the "platter" film transport systems of the time, which allow complete movies to run on one projector with no reel changes) not even checking what they were beforehand. It was a fun experience.

The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), based in Austin, seems like a place I would love to work for or at least visit since they seem to have the same things in mind. They apparently have a large amount of 35mm trailers as well as complete movies, and the more obscure the better. Like the preceding Horror Trailer Show a brand-new 35mm print of this "mixtape" was made for showing in a few venues still equipped to run it. That seems a bit overkill but who am I to argue?

Our show begins with a number of anti-drug PSAs from the 1980s, along with commercials for Atari video games, General Electric stereo equipment and clothes. Tossed in are what the business called "policy trailers" which usually played right before the movie, reminding the audience not to smoke or talk during the movie and to visit the snack bar if they hadn't already.

The actual movie trailers begin with 1991's sci-fi martial arts flick Robotrix which gives you a good idea of the flavor they're going for here. The trailers picked are mostly from the 1980s and 1990s with a few older and newer ones, mostly from smaller independent studios rather than the majors and all having just the right bit of cheesiness to them. Some of these you may have heard of, others you might not have but the trailers make a good argument for seeking them out. While the styles of trailers vary, most feature a strong voice-over describing the story, announcing the cast and the movie's title making it sound like this will be the absolute biggest and best film you will ever see. Quick cuts of action scenes, jokes or witty dialogue also sell you on the movie, which is still done in many of today's trailers. As one who has seen enough of these movies and their trailers knows, in some cases the bits selected are the most memorable parts of the film and the rest end up falling flat but seeing the movies is the only way to find out.

Gore-filled horror films are excluded here as the previous entry had plenty of those; there isn't much to offend squeamish viewers but few of these will be mistaken for award-worthy movies. Most of them will give you a good laugh wondering who would make or watch them, you'll likely recognize at least a few. There's too many to list individually here but highlights include 1986's BMX bike-fest Rad, Peter Jackson's X-rated Muppet spoof Meet the Feebles, the barely-released sequel Meatballs 4 starring Corey Feldman (this trailer was obviously produced on standard-def video and then transferred to 35mm, I have a few like this in my collection from smaller studios) and a teaser for 1985's Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer because why not? Thrown in for good measure are a few foreign trailers for Mexican and Asian action films with nonstop fights and car crashes. Not knowing their native languages, these may be all you may care to see of those titles.

One caveat of this "mixtape" is that the trailers are edited for a faster pace, hoping to keep the audience laughing and not growing bored. Hence the bonus feature "uncut versions" included on the disc for the purists, which will be discussed here later. A few extra liberties are also taken, most obviously having some words repeated (such as the announcer saying the title "Rad" multiple times) and sometimes random clips from other movies spliced in. This is the sort of thing that can be amusing if done correctly but annoying if overdone.

Overall this "Trailer Show" gives viewers a good selection of previews for movies they may have already seen and some that may be new but compelling enough to check out, with some that you may make a point of never bothering with if you ever come across them.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-Ray
The Cult of AGFA Trailer SHow release comes in AGFA's usual clear Blu-Ray case with a picture of a strip of 35mm film printed on the reverse side of the cover sheet. The only insert is a postcard inviting buyers to send back to AGFA with their comments, but being an obsessive collector I have to keep it as it is. The Blu-Ray begins with an unskippable opening logo and then presents the main menu with options to start the show, select chapters or extras. I have to say that it's quite disappointing that only six chapter stops were included here with dozens of trailers included. I don't know why most discs are so stingy with chapters when they can have up to 99; I transfer many old TV recordings to DVD at home and chapter every single show segment and commercial for easy access.

The "Show" is presented in full-frame 1.78, with most trailers framed well but a few others appearing slightly cropped on the top and/or bottom. On first viewing, it appeared to me that these were straight hi-def transfers of the 35mm trailers, but according to the commentary it's actually taken from the new 35mm print that was made from these trailers. With that in mind, I didn't see any noticeable degradation. The commentary also mentioned that color correction had to be done for some of the older trailers which had turned red from age, but the resulting presentation looks about as good as I'd expect these trailers to be if I were to take them off the shelves and project them myself. A good thing is that it doesn't appear that any effort was made to make these look better than they really do; colors are kept at natural levels without being obviously boosted and any film damage seems to have been left as-is also. (Theaters that employed people who knew what they were doing could keep all film in pristine condition no matter how much it was played, but far too many would have incidents where the film was misthreaded during showing or otherwise mishandled resulting in scratches.)

The sound is the true bad news here, and the reason why I haven't rated this release higher. Although there are a few trailers here that include Dolby Digital tracks, all of the audio here is taken from the standard analog optical tracks. To make matters worse, the sound reader was kept in mono mode for all trailers, even though there are several here that I know were at least in stereo. (One "improper" thing I often did in my work was run trailers in stereo mode, even though ones produced in mono are supposed to be played with the system set to mono. I enjoyed hearing any noise from the audio track leaking into the adjacent channels. Generally, stereo trailers were inconsistent up until 1996, when studios finally made it standard for all of them to have stereo optical mixes as well as digital tracks in most formats.) The Blu-Ray presents all of this in a 2-channel DTS-HD Master Audio track which with proper sound settings keeps everything dead center.

The biggest tragedy here is the Regal Cinemas "policy trailer", featuring "Pepsi Girl" Hallie Kate Eisenberg in a Western movie setting. (This was a two-minute piece that played before every movie at their theaters from mid-2000 through early 2001 and was quite grating for frequent moviegoers to see every time they came. It was eventually pulled when Eisenberg's contract with Pepsi was not renewed.) This had a great 5.1 Dolby Digital mix with the typical trailer practice of having all voices isolated in the center channel and some off-screen shouting in the surround channels which ensured that the sound system was working correctly. The optical analog stereo mix was less effective but still worth presenting properly over the flat mono presentation we get here.

• Commentary with the AGFA team runs the length of the main "mixtape" with several participants. Much of it is spent laughing at the awfulness of many of the movies presented, but they also discuss the thrill of having a large archive of film to pull these trailers from. One speaker justifies the editing of the trailers to keep the show running at a faster pace, and sound-collage artists Negativland (a personal favorite of mine) are cited as an inspiration for much of this. The audio issue is not addressed.
• Uncut versions of all trailers that appear in the mixtape (HD, 86:00) presents the movie previews, but NOT the theater snipes and ads, in complete form. Visually the biggest difference is the trailer for 2005's comedy Strangers With Candy which was the only trailer taken from a 2.35 ratio "Scope" copy and this was cropped to 1.78 for the mixtape. (Regardless of how a movie was shot, it was standard for both 1.85 "Flat" and anamorphic "Scope" versions of most trailers to be sent to theaters so that they could be shown with either type of movie, these were usually cropped to fit the frame but some were matted on the sides or top and bottom to preserve their full ratios.) The audio for all of these is still in flat mono, even though I know the later ones had digital audio tracks and at least a few others had stereo optical tracks. A few appear to be missing the very beginning and end, and most have random bits of film leader in between trailers. There is no menu to select any individual trailer and again chapters are used very sparingly, only allowing direct access to those for Strangers With Candy, Sins of Rachel, Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, Times Square and Another Son of Sam.
• Short: RATED R by AGFA's Bret Berg (HD, 8:35) is an amusing piece taken mostly from TV spots for movies with nothing but the parts where the titles appear onscreen with an announcer speaking that title.
• Short: THE DAY THE EARTH GOT FREE RICHARD PRYOR PHOTOS (HD, 3:26) So named because of a segment from a drive-in theater snipe promising free Richard Pryor photos for customers on a certain day, this is a mish-mash of random 16mm film clips, taken mainly from a print of The Day The Earth Stood Still, a Batman TV episode and an educational film about dental hygiene. Negativland is again cited at the end. I've seen a few pieces like this and while they're amusing, I shudder at the thought of films that were damaged in order to make them.
• Short: Just When You Thought It Was Safe (HD, 3:26) is a 35mm Jaws 2 trailer that was found in a box and had a bit of surgery done on it by a likely bored projectionist- bits of a 1980s car ad are spliced in and some parts of the trailer are turned upside down and backwards for comedic effect.

As a film and media geek with a penchant for stuff that is obscure and ridiculous, The Cult of AGFA Trailer Show is the kind of release I enjoy. Watching this will at least turn you on to a few lesser-known films that you may want to hunt down if you have similar taste. The video transfers for the trailers might be a bit all over depending on their age or storage, but the presentation is serviceable in their truncated form. And since there's the "uncut" option in the bonus features, it's not all bad. This would have gotten a higher rating overall had the stereo audio tracks been transferred properly, but devotes of this sort of content should find it with the while. Worth A Look