Ernie Kovacs' Hilarious Trailer for This Film

I have this movie on a "Jack Lemmon Collection' multi-disc set, and as an extra, we get the Ernie Kovacs' hosted trailer for the movie.

From what I've read(I wasn't much around), Ernie Kovacs was a big TV star with a certain "offbeat" reputation, more likely found around morning and afternoon TV than evenings. He was a funny guy, but his TV productions now look a bit "arty" and "twee," sometimes very funny, sometimes not.

In any event, Kovacs hit big enough on TV that movies came calling, and "Operation Mad Ball" was the first one, and evidently Columbia felt that Kovacs should use his shambling, quiet, witty TV personality to personally introduce the film -- and his motion picture debut -- to audiences.

Its a bit dated, but I found Kovacs' trailer to be quite funny, and Kovacs to be quite the personality...big guy, big moustache, big cigar...but a quiet, lisping, odd manner.

Some highlights (based on memory) paraphrased.

Kovacs, sitting at a desk speaks to us:

"I want to tell you about a movie coming to this very theater soon...which makes more sense, I'd say, than telling you about a movie that has already played here."

"Big stars? You want big stars? Take a look at this scene with Glenn Ford."
(Insert nondescript shot of Glenn Ford smoking.) Glenn Ford. (Pause) He's not in this picture, but that was a scene with him for you."

"This movie is based on this book (shows us a copy of Webster's Dictionary.) This book has it all...action, lust, passion. Every single word. (Pauses) And this is the unexpurgated version...(lewd look, eyebrows wag)...ya know what I mean?"

(The desktop LEAVES THE ROOM on the backs of two men crawling on hands and knees, leaving Kovacs' sitting alone.) "What's this? Union. Must be 5:00 quitting time. (Checks watch). 4:58? We'll see about this!"

Kovacs goes on to show scenes from the movie that are of no interest at all and, when introducing Miss Kathryn Grant...cuts to the pretty young lady(in new footage, and in underwear) screaming "ERNIE!" "Oops, sorry."

It is a gentle trailer from a gentle time, but Kovacs sure has got it. He plays to the camera like the radio and TV-trained adlibber he is, and he certainly has the acting chops to pull it off.

He's not nearly as funny in "Operation Mad Ball" as he is in the trailer. Couldn't be -- he's the humorless bureaucratic martinet military villain. I guess he got to do this trailer so he could "be" Ernie Kovacs -- now that Hollywood was going to ignore almost everything that made him famous.