“His name is Samson. He’s big with his cat, with mama and with his stick. Black Samson… he’s mean and clean and rules the scene.”
In the 70s and 80s, filthy little theaters littered New York’s 42nd Street, sandwiched between adult bookstores, porn theaters, and peepshows. These dens of celluloid sin hosted an endless loop of “B” movies affectionately known as grindhouse films. They ran exploitation films, drive-in double features, and European softcore of every subgenre, ranging from Blaxploitation to Sexploitation, from Euro-crime to Sci-Fi and Horror. Some theaters projected these movies 24 hours a day, seven days a week! 42nd Street Forever collects nearly ninety (approximately three hours and forty-five minutes) of sensational vintage trailers from these grindhouse classics.
42nd Street Forever makes a perfect party complement. Your guests will be amazed these unbelievable trailers were real movies in the first place. Warning, these trailers are not politically correct. In fact, many of these movies could never be made in today’s socially correct climate, and some probably should never have been made in the first place. Some of these previews might leave you feeling little dirty, exploited, and in need of a shower, giving a lurid subtext to the term “Coming Soon.”
I doubt many of these films even still exist. Synapse Films presented this amazing collection of trailers in a series of 42nd Street Forever DVDs, this blu ray incorporates the two in the series as well as an additional, previously unreleased sampling of grindhouse trailer insanity. I dare you to watch these and not want to acquire some of the titles for your personal collection. Many of them I just wanted to see to claim I had. These are not great films, but they are unforgettable.
The set is grouped in genres, starting with blaxploitation, then vengeance films, sexploitation, and so on. I personally wouldn’t have gone this route as things can get a bit repetitive, after about the fifth blaxploitation or sexploitation trailer in a row you start growing numb to the style. The menu interface is frustratingly awkward for a Blu-ray release. It takes forever to scroll through individual chapters and returns you to the beginning of the list after each viewing. However, menu notwithstanding, this rare collection is as wonderful, weird, and compelling as sneaking under the tent of a midnight carnival freak show.
Complete list of the trailers in the collection:
1. Black Samson
2. Savage!
3. Kenner
4. The Guy from Harlem
5. Welcome Home, Brother Charles
6. Boss Nigger
7. Honky
8. Sugar Hill
9. Rolling Thunder
10. Act of Vengeance
11. Ms. 45
12. They Call Her One Eye
13. Ginger
14. Savage Sisters
15. Chained Heat
16. Delinquent Schoolgirls
17. The Pom Pom Girls
18. The Teasers Go to Paris
19. The Teacher
20. College Girls
21. Street Girls
22. The Babysitter
23. Teenage Mother
24. I, A Mother
25. When Women Had Tails
26. The Curious Female
27. The Tale of the Dean’s Wife
28. The Minx
29. The Centerfold Girls
30. The Depraved
31. Invitation to Ruin
32. Helga
33. The Sun, the Place and the Girls
34. Fairytales
35. Flesh Gordon
36. Starcrash
37. Dark Star
38. The Raiders of Atlantis
39. Matango
40. The Green Slime
41. They Came from Beyond Space
42. The Deadly Spawn
43. The Dark
44. The Evil
45. The Evictors
46. The Undertaker and His Pals
47. The Devil’s Nightmare
48. Deadly Blessing
49. Rabid
50. Eye of the Cat
51. Mark of the Witch
52. I Dismember Mama & The Blood Splattered Bride
53. Women and Bloody Terror & Night of Bloody Horror
54. Dr. Butcher M.D
55. The Grim Reaper
56. Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon
57. Wicked Wicked
58. The Flesh and Blood Show
59. The 3 Dimensions of Greta
60. Hard Candy
61. Panorama Blue
62. Italian Stallion
63. Maid in Sweden
64. Pornography in Denmark
65. Secret Africa
66. Shocking Asia
67. Taboos of the World
68. Chappaqua
69. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
70. The 44 Specialist
71. The Bullet Machine
72. Death Drive
73. Spy in Your Wife
74. Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
75. The Last of Secret Angels
76. The Crippled Master
77. Shogun Assassin
78. SuperManChu
79. Born Losers
80. Hells Angels on Wheels
81. Devil’s Angels
82. The Pink Angles
83. Werewolves on Wheels
84. Dixie Dynamite
85. Mr. Billion
86. Super Fuzz
87. Sunset Cove
88. Van Nays Blvd.
89. Skatetown U.S.A.
Video:
42nd Street Forever is a MPEG-4 AVC encoded presentation running in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio running an average of 23 Mbps. Considering the endless glitches, scratches, color washout, and general low-budget source problems, watching the trailers on 42nd Street Forever is a bit like watching them projected on a dingy dark grindhouse theater screen. There really isn’t any reason this is in HD, but this is no doubt as good as these will ever look. The definition and detail is there, but it only serves to highlight the original film source problems.
Audio:
42nd Street Forever is presented with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack. There is no surround or even stereo in most cases. Like the video, the audio quality varies trailer by trailer. The low-fi mono helps to establish mood of the original presentations.
Special Features:
- Commentary – an audio commentary featuring Edwin Samuelson from AVManiacs, Michael Gingold from Fangoria Magazine, and Chris Poggiali from Temple of Schlock. Interesting and informative, but doesn’t really cut loose until into the third hour.
Final Thoughts:
Apparently there are a few trailers on DVD volumes 1 & 2 which didn’t make it to this compilation due to quality issues. That said, this is still the best collection of risky and avant-garde grindhouse trailers ever gathered. It serves as a wonderful introduction into the world of underground cult movies. Watch with friends for an excellent cultural shock treatment.
“It happens two hundred and fifty thousand times a year. Where is your daughter tonight? This is the story of a girl who wasn’t careful. Teenage Mother means nine months of trouble.”
One Response
Sweet batch of revenge trailers Ms. 45 will always have a soft spot in my heart.
And it would be nice if some of these titles actually got a dvd release.