Top Trailers: TRUCK TURNER
If there's a subgenre of the exploitation film that was tailor-made for the movie trailer, it's got to be blaxploitation. These films not only were often filled with action, wild plotting and eye-popping threads, they also lent themselves a groovy treatment highlighted by funky narration and even funkier music. Truck Turner, the debut starring vehicle for erstwhile soul music genius Isaac Hayes, offers a memorable example of how a good trailer could distill a blaxploitation film into two minutes of soul-inflected excitement.
The first thirty seconds of Truck Turner hit the screen at full swagger to establish IsaacHayes as a marquee attraction: over a tense wah-wah guitar riff, a narratoraffecting a streetwise tone warns us: "Hideyo mamas... big brother is coming..." His words play out over amontage of Hayes, sometimes shirtless, punching dudes and brandishing a Dirty Harry-style firearm. In amemorable moment, he hits a guy in a phone booth so hard he goes flying rightthrough the glass. Hayes gets his own solo title card and his titular charactername also gets one after he tells the unruly patrons of a bar post-brawl: "Tell 'em you've been hit by a truck:Mack 'Truck' Turner."
The next forty seconds or so is a sales pitch extollingthe bonafides of Hayes and his character. We see him as a man of romance, wooing his girlfriend with a six-pack ofbeer as he picks her up from the bus stop. The narrator explains to us thatMack is a bounty hunter ("makin' ahealthy livin'... by makin' livin' unhealthy"). We see plenty more ofhim shooting and beating up criminals.
Most importantly, we learn the criminal underworld isout to get him when he see Nichelle Nichols, who has traded her Star Trek uniform for superfly madamthreads as she shouts "I want thatbastard Truck Turner and I want him dead!" Turner has to dodge many would-be assassins,including an attacker who shoots at him while he's carrying groceries - thismakes a carton of milk erupt like an albino squib when hit.
Nichols is fantastic in this film: not only is herwardrobe heart-stopping but she handles her villainous role with wicked aplomb.The trailer editor recognized this and devotes the next twenty seconds of thetrailer entirely to her as she shows off the girls in her bordello ("$238,000 worth of dynamite. It's FortKnox in panties!") to a gang of criminal players. She closes with asales-pitch: "The man who kills himgets my broads."
The balance of the trailer returns to Hayes as its mainfocus. After a few quiet seconds where he vows to "collect" on thecriminals threatening his life, the final 45 seconds of the trailer unleashesone last barrage of action. Fifteen of those seconds are devoted to a wildshootout in a hospital between Mack and the hired goons. In one unforgettableshot, an injured colleague of Mack's rises up from his bed and starts blastingaway with a revolver. If you've ever had the good fortune of seeing thistrailer in a theater with a full house, that moment always brings the housedown.
The trailer winds to a close with highlights from a bigcar chase scene than runs around ten minutes in the film itself. It's allexciting, imaginatively shot stuff from the days when such stunts all had to bedone live in front of the camera. In the trailer, it's used as a thrillingbackdrop for the narrator to complete his pitch for how the film representsHayes' transition from your stereo to the movie screen. There's also a quickpitch for the double-album soundtrack, composed by Hayes. Said album is a mustfor funk fans and the epic cue for the car chase scene is one of itshighlights. After an exploding car and one more gunshot, the trailer stops on adime.
Truck Turner arrived early in what would be a twenty-five year acting career than ran parallel to Hayes' prolific recording career. Truck Turner is one of his best credits and this trailer captures its appeal: director Jonathan Kaplan's flamboyant visual sense, the copious action, the plush orchestral funk score and, best of all, Hayes' charismatic screen presence. Both the film and the trailer do a great job of displaying why the blaxploitation genre inspires such loyalty in its fans.
To read Schlockmania's film review of Truck Turner, click here.