Trashy Trailers For A Saturday

It's a don't worry, we'll think of a title kind of day and, as we're enjoying listening to The Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show on KFJC, the topic of today's post shall be trailers a.k.a. coming detractions.



While we're not big fans of sunshine, lollipops and rainbows at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we do like trailers from bad movies. No, let's make that trailers from very bad movies.



Have seen many of these movies in their entirety on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Cinema Insomnia or the live Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax shows.



The following trailers are some lulus, and they come in extra cheesy flavors, just the way we like them at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog. We're amazed these fly-by-night production houses could even afford to make a trailer!



Then again, in the words of Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia, they're not bad movies, just "misunderstood".



There's always the trailer to alert one to NOT watch the feature.



Some trailers actually show the ending of the film!



Others tip off the entire idea of the movie, in this case, "say, since that Batman TV show is the biggest boffo thing in showbiz, let's get a girl with ample cleavage and have her wear a Batwoman mask, then find a bunch of kids to dance the frug. Who needs a storyline?"



Continuing this cornucopia of cheap cinematic crap, the "coming detractions" trailer from The Mighty Gorga. Can a hard-working independent filmmaker produce a "rampaging dinosaur" epic on a budget of $1.50 and a three hour shooting schedule? No - definitely and emphatically!



If there could be a list of WTF??? and "why why why did this get produced???" movies, The Wild Women Of Wongo might be #1. Too bad Arthur Q. Bryan was not available to narrate the trailer in the voice of Elmer Fudd.



The YouTube channel of Something Weird Video, a company that specializes in the netherworld of "misunderstood" low, lower and no budget grindhouse movies, is the motherlode of schlock, trash and exploitation trailers.



Something Weird Video has assembled a vast lot of cinematic car wrecks one can't stop rubbernecking at - and we mean that as a compliment.



Here's a trailer for an indescribably terrible movie about a guy who, after a car accident, ends up as a preacher and ends up with a floozy - the cheap floozy to end all cheap floozies, strictly non-Screen Actors Guild variety. One imagines Doris Wishman, director/writer of Bad Girls Go To Hell and many more proudly sleazy (produced on-time and on-budget) exploitation flicks watched this one and took notes on how to make the tawdry storyline even more tawdry, with even less of a budget, less actors, less dialogue and less clothing.



The 7th Commandment was directed by Irvin Berwick, most certainly not a fan of sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, who also helmed the nearly as atrocious Monster Of Piedras Blancas. Funny, for some reason, it's always a pretty girl seen undressing before the gruesome murderous monster appears, as opposed to, say, Billy Sands, Maurice Gosfeld or Allan Melvin.



How does one close a post dedicated to flicks that will never, ever, be seen as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival? It is clear that, back in the 1980's, some fellows in the Twin Cities were watching these cinematic rejects and seeking the actual coming attractions trailers for said B-movies, as the boys of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival were doing in California.



Among the films this blogger has seen on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Cinema Insomnia and Creature Features (and could not find a trailer for on YouTube), most infamous would be the one made by an El Paso fertilizer salesman, Manos: The Hands Of Fate.



Now THAT'S a great way to get the weekend started on the wrong track!

This Blog Digs Trailers From Bad Movies

Do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog enjoy trailers from bad movies? Yes - very much.





Probably a bit too much.







We even like trailers from 1930's programmers, which are several cuts above the aforementioned Z-pictures and schlockers but fun just the same.

































with some great versions of "What Is This Thing Called Love."









Have posted Valentine's Day cartoons, the best being Tex Avery's MGM cartoon LIL' TINKER, on this blog before. Here's one that's not among Tex Avery's top 150 cartoons but is not bad for mid-1930's Merrie Melodies and has a terrific ending. Besides, we love the bit in which the main character, who is more than a little reminiscent of Harvey Comics, has fire instead of water in his shower. Nothing will accelerate one's efforts to freshen up in the morning quite like a 5000 degree blast!

One way to honor February 14 would be to, upon ponderance of this day go ask Shakespeare, then read some sonnets! But also check out this incredible song by Burt Bacharach.



Love the excellent vocal by Rufus Wainright and the song's lyrics.

I've been hoping for a better day
It's a long time coming, but I wait anyway
'Til the dark clouds have all blown away
And the sun shines again

I keep trying, I've been holding on
Though the days are empty in a world that's gone wrong
Life's a miracle or a foolish tale
I don't know, go ask Shakespeare

Love's the answer, like I said before
It's the one thing needed, maybe now even more
Love's the secret we've been looking for
'Til the sun shines again

So I keep hoping and I'm holding on
There's a cold wind blowing, but I know love is strong
There will come a day when sorrow is gone
And the sun shines again

I keep hoping for a better day
It's a long time coming, but I wait anyway
Life's a miracle or a foolish tale
I don't know, go ask Shakespeare






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Film Noir Blogathon

The Self-Styled Siren and Ferdy On Films co-host the Film Preservation Blogathon, A.K.A. For The Love Of Film (Noir) Blogathon, which started yesterday and extends through February 21.



Hopefully, the blogathon will raise 1947 vintage Brinks trunks full of do-re-me for the cause of film preservation. The fundraiser is not only inspiring terrific writing, but even has its own promotional trailer, created by Greg Ferrara!



Here's a link to the Pay Pal page for the fundraiser, which also has a Facebook group.

The Film Noir Foundation has been instrumental in the re-evaluation and preservation of the fascinating dark corners of American post-WW2 cinema. The latest vintage film noir targeted for restoration by the UCLA Film And Television Archive: Cy Endfield's hard-hitting drama The Sound Of Fury.

Although American genre films were acclaimed as early as the mid-1950's by Cahiers du cinéma filmmaker-critics Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, it took decades and the persistent efforts of historians for film noir to get respect - and for the following taut, provocative thrillers to make the transition from overlooked programmers to celebrated classic movies.











And. . . to indirectly continue the blues thread from yesterday's posting, but tie it into the For The Love Of Film (Noir) Blogathon, listen to the following smoky, bluesy, most atmospheric "noir jazz" pieces by the great Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. If these compositions don't conjure visions of a messed-up looking Robert Mitchum, face down underneath a barstool and pondering why his magic carpet ride has become an inexorable, screaming toboggan to Hell on the Death Spiral Express, nothing will.

Yet More Trailers From Bad - I Mean Misunderstood - Films

To brazenly and shamelessly purloin a phrase from Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia, "they're not bad films - just misunderstood."

Trailers From Ed Wood Movies

As your correspondent is dealing with jet lag and a full week of fighting a losing battle with "gravel pit" throat - persistent cough - fatigue - general bleccchness (as well as the happier problem of prolonged astonishment over the 2010 Giants' World Series victory), he is yet again way, way too damn lazy to write much of anything.

That said, here are theatrical trailers plugging the entertainingly execrable "cinema on a shoestring"- invariably sans the possession of an actual shoestring - of Edward D. Wood, Jr.







Can you "top" those trailers? Er. . .uh. . . in a strong effort to at least equal them in sheer WTF value, here's Bela Lugosi, waxing poetic in Wood's Citizen Kane, the 1953 opus Glen Or Glenda, A.K.A. I Changed My Sex.



The barrage of bizarreness continues with the worst starring performance by a guy in drag - including The Milton Berle Show - from Glen Or Glenda, sometimes known as Look Back In Angora.

Trailers From Mel Brooks Movies

I'm way too damn lazy to write at the moment, so enjoy these theatrical trailers:



















History Of The World, Pat 1

Happy Halloween

What late-1950's B-movie trailer could I post (on blog entry #333) that includes the essential elements of the Frankenstein genre, mixed with breathtakingly lame-brained grindhouse exploitation and both inept and indefensible horror? While I considered coming detractions from the mind-numbingly bad B-film The Brain That Wouldn't Die, this trailer for Atom Age Vampire takes the cake and makes Edward D. Wood, Jr. look like Orson Welles.



Since Halloween actually falls on a Saturday, there are tons of events throughout the San Francisco Bay Area tonight.

Oddball Film offers a Terror Noir screening, local Jazz Mafia luminaries meet at Coda for the 7th annual Mobster's Ball jam session, while Dragula and Tran Helsing host the Midnight Mass/Trannyshack Horror Show, featuring uber-ghastly horror movie clips and a special performance by guest star Jackie Beat.

And, alas, if you are a parent and/or hold a job that (drat) requires getting up early, check out the kid-friendly 4:00 matinee or the 7:30 screening of Paul Leni's Gothic ghost story/mystery The Last Warning at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum's Edison Theatre.

Halloween Trailers #4: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

Halloween Trailers #3 (Jack Broder Productions)

No doubt this 1952 Jack Broder Productions epic, Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, was featured on Count Floyd's Monster Chiller Horror Theatre - the week before "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House Of Pancakes". . . or perhaps two weeks before "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House Of Stewardesses". Oooooooh, it's scarrrrr-yyyy, all right, particular those shameless Martin & Lewis imitators.

You gotta love schlockmeister producer Jack Broder, several steps down from such talented low-budget filmmakers as Roger Corman and Russ Meyer, but several steps up from Jerry Warren, Doris Fish and the immortal Edward D. Wood Jr. Broder also featured the ever-hard-working "guy in a gorilla suit" prominently in his 1951 opus Bride Of The Gorilla.

Can't watch this trailer without thinking of my favorite line from a movie made in the past 20 years, the moment when, in Tim Burton's inspired 1994 biopic Ed Wood, Martin Landau, as a down on his luck and strung-out Lugosi) laments "No one gives two f^*&!%^ks for Bela."

Halloween Trailers #2 (Hammer Films, again)

Because, as far as I'm concerned, pulchritude beats standard-issue gore, thrills and chills every time, here's another Hammer Films trailer, this one for Countess Dracula, starring the drop-dead (hey, it is a horror flick) gorgeous Ingrid Pitt.

Halloween Trailers #1 (Hammer Films)

While I look forward to tonight's "Midnight Movie Massacre", hosted by Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia, as part of the Shock It To Me Fest at San Francisco's Castro Theatre, here, to keep us going until then, is the trailer to Hammer Films' Curse of Frankenstein.