What do Sissy Spacek and the Toxic Avenger have in common? They share, in a manner of speaking, a shabby brownstone on Ninth Avenue that has been home to Troma Entertainment for more than two decades.
Troma may be best known for gross-out films like “The Toxic Avenger” and “Surf Nazis Must Die,” but many of the movies in the company’s 900-plus film library, roughly 300 of which are out on DVD, are not of the “Toxic” variety.
Among the DVDs stacked for shipping in the dangerously overcrowded brownstone are “Ginger in the Morning,” an obscure drama Spacek made just before her 1973 breakthrough in “Badlands,” as well as early efforts by Vincent D’Onofrio (“The First Turn-On”) and Samuel L. Jackson (“Def by Temptation”).
Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, an avuncular Mel Brooks look-alike who directs many of the movies (“Citizen Toxie” is the latest), notes that Troma’s Roan Group label distributes older Hollywood films with stars like James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck and Danny Kaye.
At least one of them – 1941’s “That Uncertain Feeling” with Melvyn Douglas and Merle Oberon – was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, the legendary German helmer whom Kaufman credits with inspiring his own career.
“I was watching Lubitsch’s ‘To Be or Not To Be’ at the Yale Film Society, and I was so impressed by its controlled insanity that I immediately decided that’s what I wanted to do,” said Kaufman, who had followed in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer.
“That Uncertain Feeling” is among hundreds of mostly public-domain movies (their copyrights have expired) that Troma bought from collector Cary Roan, many of whose original 35mm prints are among the best available on the market.
The pristine transfer of “White Zombie,” a 1932 horror classic with Bela Lugosi, also includes a couple of rare interviews with the actor.
Kaufman still travels the world spreading the Troma gospel – even as he’s working on a script for a comic thriller about haunted chickens (“Poultry-geist”).
Just last month, he hosted Tromadance, an alternative film festival to Sundance, in Park City, Utah – and traveled to Paris for a Troma retrospective at the prestigious Cinematheque Francaise.
Cinefile is on assignment and will return Feb. 10. Send e-mail to Lou Lumenick at Llumenick@nypost.com.