A neorealist gangster film created by the band The Clash has resurfaced back on the internet. Filmed in 1983, the band’s frontman Joe Strummer decided to make a movie. In a 2005 interview with Far Out Magazine, Mick Jones discussed the idea of it. “We had no other agenda there than that. Everyone put in their time without thinking about it. That was what we did on our time off; we worked! It was totally Joe [Strummer]’s idea. He directed it, he shot it, he did it. And then it was gone. It didn’t even come out.”
Strummer then mentioned in a 1987 interview that he had made the film but did not release it. “I have directed a film myself, a black and white 16mm silent movie and it was a disaster,” he said. “Luckily the laboratory that held all the negative went bankrupt and destroyed all the stock, so the world can breathe again. I shot without a script. God knows what it was about. I’m the only other one that knew, and I’m not telling.”
After Strummer’s passing in 2002, the film was found on a VHS Tape and was given to long-time collaborator Don Letts, who then re-edited the film and added a Clash-infused soundtrack.
Each member played a role in the film with bassist Paul Simonon appearing as Earl, a musician who gets into trouble with a crime boss named Socrates, played by Jones. Strummer played a corrupt and as a racist policeman. Check it out below.
Jones was recently featured on The Avalanches dance-hall-inspired track “We Go On,” also featuring Cola Boyy.
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