42nd Street Forever, Vol. 1 [DVD] [2005]

Cult movie fans are used to collections of trailers looking rather shabby so this disc of 42nd Street Forever Vol. 1 from Synapse Films might come as a shock to such viewers. Each trailer was taken from a celluloid source: some look better than others and a certain degree of scratches and print damage are to be expected but all the trailers benefit from having been remastered in High-Definition. Thus, even the most beat-up trailer offers levels of color and detail that fans wouldn't expect to see in such material. The audio retains the original mono soundtracks for these trailers: there's some hiss and crackling in spots but all the hard-sell narration, corny dialogue and schlocky soundtrack cues still manage to come through with unexpected clarity. There are no extras to speak of but the fact that this disc features 128 minutes worth of rare trailers goes a long way towards making up for the lack of extras. In short, this is a great collection for cult movie fans and one of the best-looking trailer compilations to ever hit the DVD format.