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Released by: Garagehouse Pictures
Released on: March 31st, 2020.
Director: Various
Cast: Various
Year: Various
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Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack! - Movie Review:
Garagehouse Pictures unleashes Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack! which is, if you couldn't guess from the title, a collection of seventies action movie trailers - some 'pure' action titles, others more tenuously connected to the genre, but the end result is a whole lot of fun and a welcome fix for all the trailer junkies out there in home video land.
Born To Kill (better known as Cockfighter) kicks things off, before we're subjected to a double-dose of Peckinpah greatness as the classic spot for Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia then leads into The Getaway. From there, a quick trip to Germany yields a trailer for the amazing Bloody Friday and then it's back to the United States for the Walter Matthau classic, Charley Varrick.
Three Tough Guys pushes us into some vintage blaxpliotation territory for a spell. It's followed by trailers for Three The Hard Way, Hit!, Gordon's War and Tick, Tick, Tick, all of which are pretty entertaining. From there, it's time for a selection of hillbilly/redneck/road movie pictures with a fun selection starting with Payday and followed by Buster And Billie, Joyride, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry and Return To Macon County.
After that, it's bikersploitation time! We kick this section off with a trailer for Angels Die Hard which is followed by the amazing Viva Kneivel (Evel Kneivel is your messiah!), C.C. And Company featuring Joe Namath of all people (and the lovely Ann-Margret), The Loners, The Losers and Run, Angel, Run. Phew!
Once we get out of hog heaven, it's time for western action as the discs blasts away through trailers for Cain's Way, the mighty High Plains Drifter and then some more Peckinpah with spots for The Ballad Of Cable Hogue and Junior Bonner, closing out with a spot for Camper John (aka Prologue To Wounded Knee).
No Mercy Man kicks off a second round of Blaxploitation trailers that also includes trailers for Black Shampoo, the amazing Trouble Man (such a great soundtrack from Marvin Gaye on this one), Cleopatra Jones and its sequel Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold.
We get a fairly random assemblage after that. Small Town In Texas leads into The Gravy Train which leads into Open Season which then leads into Tomcats (one of those tenuous inclusions mentioned in the opening!) before getting back into theme-mode with a bunch of cop movie trailers like The Super Cops, Cops And Robbers, Dirty O'Neill: The Love Life Of A Cop, Busting and Law And Disorder.
After that, you're going to want to get your gear and jump into a collection of vigilante movie promo spots, where manly men take the law into their own hands to get results! The amazing Rolling Thunder comes first, followed by Bronson as Mr. Majestyk, and a trio of Jan-Michael Vincent headliners in the form of Vigilante Force (co-starring Kris Kristofferson), Big Wednesday and the awesome trucker/vigilante film, White Line Fever. These leads into a few more truck-themed pictures with
High Ballin' (starring Jerry Reed) and Convoy, where Kristofferson goes head to head with Ernest Borgnine. This is followed by trailers for Fast Company (early Cronenberg), William Friedkin's remake of The Wages Of Fear in 1977's Sorcerer, the original Gone In 60 Seconds, the Robert Blake stock car racing film Corky and then Walter Hill's The Driver. This leads into a nice little Hill section where we also get trailers for The Warriors and Hickey And Boggs (starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp).
From there, it's once again time to travel the world with some international trailers, starting with the Terrence Spencer/Bud Hill vehicle, Crime Busters, followed by Zorro and then a great selection of vintage kung-fu and martial arts movie trailers with Triple Irons, Five Masters Of Death, Kill Or Be Killed, Steel Edge Of Revenge, Blood Of The Dragon, The Young Dragon and the awesome Angela Mao classic, Deadly China Doll!
After that, things get decidedly sleazier with a great trailer for Wildcat Women (also known as Black Lolita) starring Serena and Sandy Carey, the third Cheri Caffaro Ginger film The Abductors, the Crown International classic Hustler Squad, The Hot Box with Margaret Markov, The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, and the Tiffany Bolling classic, Bonnie's Kids.
This leads into a pair of amusing dog-centric heist films with trailers for The Daring Dobermans and The Doberman Gang, at which point things get fairly random for a while with trailers for The Murder Gang, Black Out, The Silent Partner and the Ben Gazzara movie, High Velocity.
Bringing things to a close, the disc goes out on a high note with a great trailer for the Bronson/Vincent starring The Mechanic, the Euro-crime classics The Family and The Italian Connection, two Lee Marvin classics with Prime Cut and the amazing Emperor Of The North and then, last but not least, Bronson and Walter Hill's amazing Hard Times.
Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack! - Blu-ray Review:
Garagehouse Pictures presents Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack on Blu-ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition, each in its own aspect ratio, and generally speaking things look really good here (these were all transferred in 4k from 35mm elements). Expect scratches and print damage throughout but fans of trailer compilations wouldn't have it any other way. The disc is well authored, there are no obvious compression issues to note despite the long running time of the disc, nor are there any traces of noise reduction or edge enhancement here. These trailers look like the marginally beaten up film sourced promo spots that they are, but you'll still notice quite a bit more detail and texture here than you would on a standard definition offering. Quality varies from one spot to the next but overall, yeah, this stuff looks really good on Blu-ray, very film like and appropriately gritty and grainy. The only real complaint? Slapping just over three-hours' worth of content onto a 25GB disc. As such, compression is less than ideal here, but thankfully noticeable artifacts are not a constant problem.
Audio chores are handled by a 16-bit DTS-HD Mono track that is on par with the video - it's not quite pristine, but it sounds very good for what it is. The various narrators used on the different trailers are always nice and clear and the levels are properly balanced. The music and effects bits also sound nice and strong. If there's a bit of hiss here and there and the odd pop in the mix, that's okay. There aren't any subtitles provided on the disc.
Aside from trailers for a few other Garagehouse Pictures Blu-ray releases, we get menus offering a 'play all' option or individual trailer selection. Additionally, Nathanial Thompson and Howard S. Berger provide an audio commentary that covers the entirety of the presentation. The track is trailer specific and they don't always have tons of time to get in as much info as maybe they'd want to, but overall they do a great job of laying out the facts for each one of the trailers included here. Some tidbits and highlights? The rom-com elements of Born To Kill are explored, the involvement of Roger Corman in a lot of the films represented here, the elevation of Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia's status over the years, the genre-mashing elements in Three Tough Guys and Berger's impressions of seeing it first run in the theater as a kid, why Ralph Nelson's movies matter despite the frequent critical lambastings they received, how Joe Namath and Ann Margret wound up in C.C. And Company and its ratings/nudity quotient, the influence of James Bond movies on the Cleopatra Jones films, how Busting defies expectations with its use of humor, how Peckinpah's films were hated by scores of people during their initial release, the groundbreaking location work seen in The Warriors, how you should watch anything with the Crown International logo on it, how it's interesting to see a future Oscar winner pop up in something like Prime Cut and how Emperor Of The North really is the 'king of the man movies.' It's a fun track, worth listening to for sure.
The disc comes housed inside a clear Blu-ray case with a double cover sleeve that, on the interior, features a listing of the trailers in the order they appear on the disc.
Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack! - The Final Word:
Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack! is a blast, offering up over three-hours of seventies action movie trailer insanity sure to entertain those with an affinity for the genre and the time period. Highly recommended!
Click on the images below for full sized Trailer Trauma V - 70's Action Attack! Blu-ray screen caps!
