Trailer (s) of the Week: The Percy Rodrigues Edition

In the pantheon of great trailer narration, my favorite has always been the Jaws narrator who gravely intones this choice simile: "It's as if God created the Devil and gave him...JAWS!" After hearing his voice in another trailer posted on another blog, I decided to seek out a little more about the person behind the voice.

The narrator is Percy Rodrigues, a character actor of mixed African and Portuguese decent whose most famous role is as Commodore Stone on the Star Trek season one episode "Court Martial". His great deep voice provided him a long career in voice over work throughout several decades before he passed away in 2007.

Here are some Percy Rodrigues narrated trailers that I have tracked down.

The original Jaws trailer


Universal was smart enough to rehire him to voice the 1979 sequel, Jaws 2, where Rodrigues would make another intense proclamation, one that would long out live the repetitive mediocrity of the film: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water"


Universal also hired him to narrate the trailer to John Badham's 1979 remake of Dracula starring Frank Langella as the titular bloodsucker. Surprisingly, I've never seen the film, but let's give credit to Rodrigues for giving dignity to the trailer's awkward claims of being "the story of the greatest lover who ever lived, died and lived again"


In 1979, after the success of Star Wars, Disney tried to get into the sci-fiction game, the underwhelming result was The Black Hole. I've haven't watched the film in about ten years, but remember being bored both times I tried to get through it, but damn if the trailer with it's retro graphics and yes, Rodrigues narration, piqued my interest in "the journey that begins where everything ends"


And finally, for the time being at least, Rodrigues was asked to narrate the trailer to the interminably delayed (delayed as in three people who were interviewed for the film: Rodrigues, Peter Benchley and Roy Schieder have since past away) documentary about the Jaws phenomena, The Shark is Still Working. The trailer is in itself a homage to the original.


That's all for now, hopefully I can hunt down more to share with you soon.