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4. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
By IFC
on 06/25/2009
Quite a clever gambit -- especially for 1947 -- the trailer for "Miracle on 34th Street" is more like a five-minute short film that for the most part takes place outside of the world of the movie it's advertising. It opens as a conventional trailer with keywords splashed onto the screen: Hilarious! Romantic! Delightful! Charming! Tender! Exciting! A voice calls out to stop the tape, and we cut to a screening room, where an ostensible studio head begins crabbing about the lack of focus in the trailer -- the film can’t be all of those things, can it?
He sends his men back to the drawing table before heading out to the backlot. There he runs into various actors, including Ann Baxter, who all give him varied but extremely positive kudos for "Miracle," with a young girl declaring it to be “simply groovy!” The studio honcho, who hasn’t bothered to see the film, returns to the screening room, and we get a number of shots of him sitting through the film: laughing, crying, being moved and delighted. When the lights come up he tells the men he’s got just the angle for the trailer, and proceeds to repeat their ideas right back to them. It’s a uniquely transparent approach to the dilemma the studio faced with the movie, which they wanted to market as all things to all moviegoers, and in making the studio head look like a bit of a putz, gains a little charm of it’s own. And who knew they said “groovy” in 1947? Or that they spelled it “groovey”? --Michelle Orange
I guess you guys haven't seen the trailer for The Hughes Bros.'s Dead Presidents, huh? What about Forest Gump? I think those are the 2 greatest of all time. Gump is better than the movie. And Dead Prez is the best ever.
Oh... what about the SW Ep 1 teaser? Maybe you should call this the best film trailers on YouTube! LOL. Dead Prez is probably too hard for you to locate.
I think The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and 300 should be included!
Clerks? No love for the Clerks trailer? Sigh.
Honorable mention for the Grindhouse fake trailers? "Don't" was brilliant.
Great list, by the way. Thanks for including 'Man Who Wasn't There'
Seriously? We have to click 50 times just to get the damn list? No thanks.
Like clicking 50 times is soooo hard, right? But you guys forgot about There Will Be Blood!!
50 PAGES?!!! Get back to work researching how to post an article. No Digg for you.
50 PAGES?!!! Get back to work researching how to post an article. No Digg for you.
GREAT article and flawless pick for #1. I actually did a lil piece on that trailer at our own movie blog, so I'm elated to see as your top pick. Yay trailers!