10 ALL-STAR HOSTED TRAILERS: The Personal Touch in Coming Attractions

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Frederick Greene

The very first sound trailer had a host and ever since, the hosted trailer has been a reliable and distinctive formula in movie marketing. As a rhetorical technique, the hosted trailer combines personal authority with celebrity as its key appeals, since the host is usually a star, celebrity or well-known director or producer.

Besides providing information, a host also plays the part of “audience surrogate,” modeling how to respond to and consume the film for those yet to buy their tickets. Hosted trailers clearly derive from the tradition and style of the Vaudeville impresario and the Circus’ Ring-master, who come before their audiences, offering something for everyone and every taste.

Countering the received wisdom that the filmmaker is the last person who should be allowed to produce the marketing for his or her film, a number of the most memorable (and probably effective) trailers of all time are by filmmakers. Hitchcock appeared in trailers for many of his greatest films. Orson Welle’s hosted Citizen Kane. Cecil B. DeMille was infamous for his 10 minute epic trailer for his epic feature, The Ten Commandments.

Below, I’ve assembled a collection of hosted trailers that every coming attractions buff ought to know. You’ll notice that the “contemporary” era is a bit light. I know they’re still being made, but I couldn’t think of any I’d seen recently. I welcome your nominations. I suspect we could grow this list to 100 without too much difficulty.

THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)

Quite possibly the dullest, most awkward hosted trailer ever. But then, it’s the first, and had no reference. The Host, actor John Miljan (a veteran of 201 films, but not, interestingly, The Jazz Singer), seems confused about his duties, which are: a) to promote and publicize the Jazz Singer; and b) to introduce and demonstrate Vitaphone technology.

CITIZEN KANE (1941)

Mr. Welles is your off screen host, whose resonant voice is immediately recognizable. You never see Orson, but you meet his splendid cast and learn about the film from clips and dialogue. His urbane, self-conscious modesty about the film and how we—the audience—might respond is touching and disarming.

DARK PASSAGE (1947)

In the Dark Passage (1946) trailer for this Bogey and Bacall classic that came after the Big Sleep and before Key Largo, a uniformed cinema usher performs the roll of host and qualified expert. “Take it from a guy who sees ‘em all,” urges your sincere and handsome host, “this is the best yet.”

ALL ABOUT EVE (1951)

The distributors of All About Eve commissioned hosted trailers featuring filmed and scripted “interviews” between Davis and Baxter and journalists from distinguished American publications. Here, Davis speaks to a reporter from Newsweek, describing the qualities that characterize Eve. This hosted segment, is followed by a traditional trailer presentation.


Here Baxter sympathetically describes to a journalist from Woman’s Home Companion the qualities that make her character so worthy of the audience’s curiosity.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to watch the entire 10 minutes of this trailer. Cecil takes himself very seriously and assumes the audience does as well. That’s, I think, why this “scholarly” and educational trailer for a biblical sword and sandal epic, starring everyone’s favorite, Charlton Heston, is such an unintentional gas.

PSYCHO (1960)

One of the most famous trailers of the “transitional” period, Hitchcock’s stroll through the Bates Motel parking lot is a virtuoso demonstration of how to use humor to sell terror. This man is a professional working on a closed set. Do not try this at home.

13 GHOSTS (1960)

Child actor Charlie Herbert hosts this 1:00 TV trailer for 13 Ghosts, a film he can recommend, because he’s in it.


Schlock-shock director William Castle is fondly remembered by B movie enthusiasts for his campy films and his inventive, shameless trailers. In this trailer, Castle displays his best showmanship skills as your host.

THE PINK PANTHER (1963)

In The Panther Trailer, an animated Panther is our on-screen host, but since he doesn’t talk, he is joined by an off-screen host, who asks him a lot of leading questions about actors, story and subject matter. The Panther’s sighs, chuckles, gestures and grimaces confirm his off-screen interlocutors very flattering surmises about the “coming attraction.” They explicitly model how the imagined audience is supposed to consume the film: that is, very closely and with great sympathy and enjoyment.

REAL LIFE (1979)

Not as funny as Albert thinks it is, and the trailer tells you almost nothing about the film “Real Life,” except that it is likely to be as randomly and snarkily self-conscious as the trailer.

TOYS (1992)

Robin Williams is that rare talent who can make a great trailer out of little more than himself and the most simple of sets. You get the sense that whatever the copywriter wrote, Williams ignored it and did what he does best.

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The Pink Panther: Voyeristic Pleasures In a Gem of a Trailer (Part II)

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Frederick Greene

As promised at the end of my last post, an attempt to answer the critical question: Who do the trailermakers think they’re addressing and what is it they think we want from our entertainment?.

First, we notice that the trailer addresses its audience as fellow voyeurs, while offering a take on the film that’s less nuanced and interesting than the scenes its presents. Indeed, the “show” of scenes from the movie as opposed to the “telling” voice over and Pink Panther (both audience surrogates) depicts empowered female characters who are less objects of the male gaze than seekers after their own pleasure. Capocine and Cardinale are independent agents in the plot, capable, assertive and sexually liberated. Those qualities are perfectly legible in the trailer and, I’m starting to think, part of the appeal, rather than evidence of the trailermaker’s sexism.

MALE GAZERS AND FEMALE OBJECTS?
I’ve called our twin hosts surrogates for the ideal and presumed audience: male, mature, privileged, white/pink? heterosexual and motivated by a powerful scopic drive, this ticket buyer takes a healthy interest in beautiful, full-bodied, European females. He exhibits a prurient (or is it normal?) interest in sexed-up entertainments, salacious innuendo and risqué double entendre.

The marketers have imagined an audience that wants something posh and slightly naughty; voluptuous leading ladies and suave, elegant men (in contrast to Sellers); they want sophistication, vaguely continental in savor. The trailer supplies all of these things, without much concern for plot, which is either purposely withheld or considered inessential.

Because Blake Edwards in 1963 was not the Blake Edwards we know in retrospect, and the Pink Panther was neither an iconic cartoon nor a byword for urbane, sexy comedy, the trailer can’t rely on provenance, but instead must work to associate two relatively unknown pleasures — Mr. Edwards and the Panther cartoon, with known and desired ones—Mancini, Nivens, Sellars, Capucine and Cardinale, bedroom farce, alpine luxury and European sexual mores.

But this trailer offers more than stars, generic pleasures and mild titillation. Rather, it models how an audience should enjoy the feature –frame by frame, fully engaged albeit guiltily or conspiratorily and aware of the consequences. Look how the Panther is consumed by his spectatorship; ultimately surrendering to the feature’s explosive visual impact, and body-tagged with its title. It’s even more complicated than that when you stop to think of the Panther’s extraordinary polyvalence: he’s a priceless jewel, a movie title, a cineaste, a critic, a cartoon character and an audience surrogate.

Let’s look to the editing to see how the “promised” more is conveyed visually. In terms of camera work, it’s mostly composed of medium shots, with one long shot of skiing and one closeup of Capucine’s face and the final title flying from the Panther’s flag-post tail. Personal and interior, but not intimate. This is a comedy after all, not epic or drama.

In the trailer, match cuts cleverly link cartoon and live action, the promotional and the narrative registers brought together in a composite shot: The Panther looks at a frame; the trailer cuts to the frame now full-screen, on which cast and scenes appear. Selling is, after all, Telling.

When the Panther reacts to singer Fran Jeffries, his eyes bounce to Mancini’s xylophones and her posterior, then match her shimmy and gestures, directing our attention while delivering a sample of the scopic pleasures in store.

Cutting to the wail of the saxophone, graphic hearts flow from the Panther’s breast at Capucine’s name. In the trailer, he’s the conduit for story and our guide to interpretation. But when we go to the film, the only Panther we’ll get will be in the title sequence and final credits. Here, as it often does, the trailer promises more, whereas the film can only ever deliver less.

And that is as it should be. You can’t have it all, any more than trailermakers can fully portray their features. If they did, they wouldn’t be doing their jobs, which is to tease, to appetize, to seduce, to defer: in a word: to market. What audiences want, it seems to me, is a film like that never seen at the center of David Foster Wallace’s

    Infinite Jest

– a film that needs no trailer—a movie to fulfill all your desires, a movie you can’t stop watching, a movie more important than life itself—a movie that kills. Trailers will promise you that film—and you may continue to believe you’re going to see it—and that, if I may conclude so glibly, is the essence of movie marketing generally and trailer making, specifically.

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The Pink Panther: Voyeuristic Pleasures in a Gem of a Trailer (Part I)

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Frederick Greene

Blake Edward’s 1963 comic masterpiece the Pink Panther has a wonderful trailer, including special “shoot” material from Friz Freleng and music by Henry Mancini. The 3:30 minute preview displays innovations typical of the early contemporary period, while retaining a savor of the classic era in its preoccupations and presumptions about its audience. It’s also a hoot.

A SYNOPSIS
The trailer opens on a cartoon of the eponymous Pink Panther, (against an orange background) looking at the brownish frames of a film reel and chuckling. It’s a private moment of consumption, expressed with a visual palette and style that will define the series, its key art and cartoon.

His voyeuristic reverie is interrupted by an unseen interlocutor, whose leading questions and asides to the Panther presumed to know—but who only communicates gesturally—provide the oblique presentation of story, genre, cast and production information. The man’s voice is urbane, friendly and insinuating. “Pardon me sir, but what are you looking at,” he asks? “Is that the new Pink Panther?” After gesturing him away, irritated at being interrupted in his private viewing, the Panther nods.

“Who’s in it?” the questioner continues. The Panther, who never speaks, although he does chuckle, holds the celluloid out for the narrator’s inspection. The image seen is framed by the individual frame of a film cell, a bit of visually self-reflexive punning. The border is cartoon; the image is live action. “Oh, that’s David Niven…And Peter Sellers,” says the narrator as both men appear.

“How’s he in the picture,” the voice (oh, go ahead, call him an audience surrogate) inquires? “Roll’s ‘em in the aisles, eh?” he suggests, when the Panther falls down laughing. “Who else?” he clamors to know. Shown Capucine in the frame, he reacts: “Oh Exquisite!” Then, “I see Robert Wagner’s in it too,” followed by scenes of Mr. Wagner cuckolding Sellers. “What do you think of Claudia Cardinale,” the Panther is asked next, to which his reply is hearty foot stomping and a howl of approval.

The Panther next appears peering at the film through a loupe, frame by frame (modeling how we should be watching this film) our narrator jumps to the obvious conclusion: “Oh say, what now? Are those the bedroom scenes,” to which the Panther guiltily nods, but shows no inclination to share. “Don’t be so selfish,” scolds the voice, which has the intended effect, insofar as we are soon watching extended scenes from a mild sex-farce, rife with physical comedy, sexual innuendo and bawdy double entendre.

Back to the Panther who is now blasted in the eardrums by graphically depicted musical notes pouring from the film strip (the optical track?). This in reply to the narrator’s observation that: “I understand the picture features the music of Henry Mancini.” A classic Mancini phrase of insistent, infectious cocktail music continues below the narration: “And introduces Fran Jeffries” who is shown, buttocks first, in a form fitting pants outfit, entertaining the fashionable après-ski audience.

The questioning continues: “Can you give me some idea what takes place in the picture?” The Panther obliges, showing us the print. A succession of incidents in an Alpine ski resort unspools: a skiing accident; a man falling from a ledge where’s he’s been spying on another guest; a wild fancy dress party, at which Peter Sellers, in Knight’s armor, lights a sparkler (or stick of dynamite) which burns down and jumps the diegetic barrier into the animated trailer to ignite a pile of celluloid curled at the foot of the surprised and alarmed Pink Panther. It explodes. We next see him lying charred against a salmon field, his tail in the air flying a white flag of surrender. On the white flag appears the title of the film. The solicitous voice apologizes, “Most unfortunate. I’m sorry Mr…..I didn’t get the name,” to which the Panther’s grimace cleverly underscores the title.

[TO BE CONTINUED: In my next post, I answer the question: “Just who do these trailermakers think they’re addressing and what it is that they they think we want from our entertainment?”]

The Pink Panther

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