Not too long ago something hit me about film trailers. Not that they sometimes show too much of the film, or end up in some cases being better than the film they’re promoting; I’m thinking of something which disappeared years ago – and this is me just noticing it now and wondering where it went. I’m talking about the voiceover narration in trailers.
Let me back up a little and explain what I mean by all this. Since their creation, what has been the single purpose of the film trailer? To be appealing enough to the audience so that they will want to see the film when it comes out. When film trailers began during the silent era of cinema there was obviously nothing like voiceovers; instead, any essential information about a film’s plot or characters and why people should want to see it all had to be conveyed through title cards. This was how it was when trailers began in 1913 and would continue for many years.
It wasn’t until 1944 with the trailer for Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound that the trailer received a major shakeup. This time the essential information about plot and character was told by a dramatic and booming voiceover narrator. What had happened with the idea of the trailer happened again with this, and became a vital component of film trailers. The first voiceover narrator of any note was an actor called Art Gilmore. Over the years I’ve seen plenty of trailers for older films and when I think of the voiceovers narrating them I can’t help but think of them as adequate but generic. The voices and music would always be loud and the only thing that may have felt even the slightest bit different were the tones of voice that were used, in that some would be less dramatic than others but the intention was always the same.
The next shift in trailer voiceover narration looks like a happy accident. In 1964 a western called Gunfighters of Casa Grande had a trailer that needed a voiceover narrator who had failed to turn up. In light of this, a recording engineer did the voiceover instead and having wowed MGM with this, he decided to start a career as a voiceover artist. This recording engineer-turned-voice artist’s name was Don LaFontaine.
Anyone who knows anything about film trailers will know just how important LaFontaine became. His voice had broken mid-sentence at age thirteen and given him a thunderous, godlike voice and by getting into narrating trailers, it looked as if he’d found the perfect use for it. As the decades progressed he built up a body of work that consisted of over 5,000 trailers. He even had nicknames like, “The Voice Of God” or, “Thunder Throat.”
Like those who came before him he worked across various genres of film. He could sound ominous while voicing a trailer for Batman Returns but give the same amount of energy with a light-hearted edge when doing another trailer for Home Alone. Even in the trailer for Scream which is known for half horror/half comedy he can’t help but sound serious.
Not only was he able to match his voice to the tone of just about any trailer but he even had his own catchphrase – “in a world…” which for many is instantly recognisable. When asked about it he had this to say: “we have to very rapidly establish the world we are transporting them to. That’s very easily done by saying, “in a world where…” You very rapidly set the scene.”
He may have done all these trailers but he did have a favourite which turned out to be the trailer for The Elephant Man.
It’s hard to make clear just how big an impact his work had on trailers. It reached a point where all the top ten films of 1994 like The Mask, The Flintstones, Four Weddings and a Funeral, True Lies and Clear And Present Danger had voice over narration. LaFontaine wasn’t the only person doing this kind of work at the time. Other voiceover artists included people such as Hal Douglas and the UK based Redd Pepper. Apart from those people the names of the people that have provided their voices to film trailers seem relatively obscure. On a sidenote LaFontaine and Pepper both did voiceovers for Space Jam trailers. I imagine some of their bodies of work are on the internet for all to see but be wary of variants, you may get the film and the trailer but not the right voiceover artist.
Given how prominent this aspect of film trailers was, you can’t help but wonder how it came to what feels like a sudden end. The answer is simple. The 80s and 90s may have been a golden age for this but as it gave way to the early 2000s and onwards, many of the films that were coming out and making lots of money were films like Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, Iron Man, Spider-Man. Most of them were adaptations of existing novels and comics, they had fanbases; and if you remember, one of the core goals of the trailer was to tell you who the characters were. With films like these, this was something that wasn’t needed as people already knew what they needed to.
Despite that, voiceover narration did continue. LaFontaine can be heard on trailers for 102 Dalmatians and The Simpsons Movie. But on 1 September 2008 Don LaFontaine tragically died and voiceover narration began to die with him. As the 2000s moved on the 2010s, voiceover narration in trailers declined even further. I gave the matter some thought and I don’t think I’ve heard voiceover narration in a new trailer since 2011 and by the time you get to the end of the decade in 2019, none of the highest grossing films have trailers with voiceover narration. It has indeed become a lost art form.
Of course not all trailers need voiceovers to be great. Think of the trailer for Alien where all it has is scenes from the film, alongside the sound of a beating heart and a wailing noise. Not a voiceover to be heard but it does what a trailer is supposed to and does it well. Even trailers for The Dark Knight and many of the trailers for recent James Bond films, even Goldeneye, had no voiceover. It just showed that after a long hiatus Bond was back and it looked like a great film, which it was.
For over a decade now people have been living in a world without voiceover narration in film trailers. I don’t know how other film fans feel about it. I imagine some miss them while others are indifferent. As for me I think I’m somewhere in the middle. It gave trailers something that many people enjoyed but even if it were to come back, even for a while I don’t think it would have the same effect that it once did. Trailers will go on and that’s fine. I’m just surprised that I went this long without realizing that trailers didn’t have narration any more. I assure you that my not noticing was an accident, much like how LaFontaine came to work in trailers.