Trailers from Hell

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.