Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, has partnered with the American Genre Film Archive to release “Trailer War,” a curated feature-length program of rare 35mm vintage trailers, the company announced on Friday.
Each of the selections will be presented for the first time in high-definition, and most have been previously unavailable on any home-video format.
A theatrical tour presented in 35mm is planned for December. "Animal Protector" and "Amuck" are both featured on the compilation.
The American Genre Film Archive is the largest “exploitation film” archive of its kind, housing more than 3,500 rare 35mm film prints and trailers. Many of the trailers sourced for this compilation were saved from destruction and donated by Alamo Drafthouse Founder/CEO Tim League.
Compiling the trailers has taken quite some work.
In one instance, rumors of a hidden cache of trailers located deep within a South African warehouse led League to investigate. After a series of fruitless negotiations, a distant relative brokered an illicit cash exchange in a hotel lobby and smuggled 200 pounds of celluloid from Johannesburg back to Austin.
In another excursion to a partially flooded storage facility in southern Missouri, League agreed to the take-all-or-none stipulation and loaded a truck rated for 13,000 pounds with 26,000 pounds of celluloid.
