Hidden in Plain Sight: Godard rarities on Daily Motion

Though nowhere near the insane rabbit-hole that YouTube is, Daily Motion contains many clips that are not on YT: primarily things that have a “wisp” of nudity or have been posted there so they will escape the errant Kopyright Kops who sporadically patrol YT (you pay on DM, however, by having to suppress the ads that pop up at the bottom of the image about once every three minutes). Since Godard is arguably the greatest living cinema master, I went diving to see what Uncle Jean rarities the site has to offer and found the items below.

First, a June 2009 interview with JLG in which he is quite happy to talk about his early exposure to cinema, Contempt, and the film frame, among other topics (no English subs):

Jean-Luc Godard - juin 2009

Here is an absolutely goofy ad for Godard’s Detective (1985), which I’m willing to bet good money he had nothing to do with (unsubbed, but it’s so ridiculous you’ll figure it out — the trenchcoated guy is saying the dame didn’t want to see this great movie):

TRAILER GODARD DETECTIVE 1984 FILM CLIP ANNONCE CINEMA FR HQ

Here is a commercial that Godard *did* direct, with tongue-in-cheek while he was in the midst of his “Marxist phase” in 1970:

PUB SCHICK 1970 JEAN LUC GODARD PUBLICITE RETRO CINEMA HQ

An early JLG short, Charlotte et Son Jules (1960, but made before Breathless), in which the young lead actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, is dubbed by Uncle Jean himself (J-P was doing his military service, and Godard assured him that he would use him in his first feature in return for this indulgence):

Godard - Charlotte et son Jules

In 1968, Godard, Chris Marker, and several other filmmakers put together no-budget “Cinetracts,” made on 16mm and meant to be seen as soon as possible in any circumstances whatsoever. This Cinetract, no. 19, looks to be the work of Uncle Chris rather than Uncle Jean. There are no subtitles, but this is a marvelously edited montage of photos of the May ’68 Paris riots, reminiscent of Marker’s La Jetée:

Ciné tract 19

Cinetract no. 23 was definitely made by JLG, as his handwriting is literally all over it. Here is agit-prop filmmaking at its late-twentieth century best:

Ciné tract 23

An exquisite short from 2000, “The Origins of the 21st Century.” The film is a wonderfully poetic survey of the horrors (and occasional beauty) of the twentieth century, that moves backward in time and is punctuated by images from a host of movies including The Shining, Breathless, Los Olvidados, The Silence and The Nutty Professor, and ends with the use of a beautifully appropriate moment from Ophuls’ Le Plaisir. (subtitled en Espanol). This is the height of Godard’s art:

Godard-L'origine du XXIème siècle

Prière pour le refuznik (2006) is a pair of shorts about the Israeli conscripts who refuse to serve in the Occupied Palestinian territory. The first features a scene from Uncle Jean’s own Les Carabiniers set to a song by Léo Ferré:

prière pour refuznik (1) - jean-luc godard

The second is an even more beautiful meditation on the theme (called a “mini-oratorio” by one Net source). The final title evokes “Earth versus sky”:

prière pour refuznik (2) - jean-luc godard

Larger Than Life — but not on your laptop: Leone and Eastwood on YT

In my continuing survey of discoveries of full feature films on YouTube, here’s a gent who’s posted four classic modern Westerns, three starring Clint Eastwood, and one of Sergio Leone’s masterworks. I notice the traffic on this poster’s clips range from 1,000 to 10,000, which is great, because Eastwood’s Westerns are the last link with the great sagebrush sagas of classic Hollywood. (Kevin Costner be damned!)

All of Unforgiven (1992):


For a Few Dollars More (1965) (containing the always-amazing Klaus Kinski as a hunchback):


The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976):


Leone’s epic Once Upon a Time in the West:

The Funhouse interview with Joe Sarno

I’ve uploaded two short clips from my 1997 interview with low-budget softcore filmmaker Joseph W. Sarno, hereinafter referred to exclusively as “Joe,” since he is a very nice gentleman. I talked to Joe at the Chiller Theatre convention, where it was the intention of the Chiller folk to bring him together with both Russ Meyer (who did show up) and Radley Metzger (who came but turned around and left on the first night). I interviewed Meyer (a brief clip is on YT), and had the pleasure of first meeting Joe at the convention.

Joe’s memory was bit a hazy during the interview, but that’s understandable, as I was not only asking him about films that were anywhere from 25 to over 30 years old, but it should be noted that at one point during his most prolific period in the Sixties he was making up to six movies or so a year. Here he talks about his early work, which was bound up with the “swinging” and “swapping” crazes, in particular his Sin in the Suburbs (1964). Many folks have remarked on how Joe’s ultra-low-budget effort seems to prefigure Kubrick’s slightly higher-financed Eyes Wide Shut. Take a look:



I also spoke with Joe about his cult movie Young Playthings(1972), a terrific softcore feature about a couple that encounter a woman who stages erotic "plays" in her apartment:



The film was raved about in The Incredibly Strange Film Book, but has been very hard to obtain in the U.S. since the book was published in the Eighties. One bootleg copy has been circulated far and wide on wavery VHS, and that is the only one that I and most film fans have seen. Here is a clip from it, which I’ve uploaded to Daily Motion, since YouTube has a pathetic problem with the human body (being American-owned and run).

Young Playthings
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He started it all: Deceased Artiste Les Paul

There’s nothing I can add to the official obits for guitar legend and musical innovator Les Paul, except to point you in the direction of clips featuring his amazing early work with his then-wife Mary Ford. They were stiff as hell as actors on TV, but my god, what music. Let’s start out with one that starts out with Les going full-tilt, “Whispering”:



Overdub heaven: “The World is Waiting for the Sunrise”



One of their biggest hits, a tune that still has it all, “How High the Moon”:



A 78 of the mega-catchy “Tiger Rag”:



And a quiet one to end on, “Vaya Con Dios”:

Filmation jumped the cartoon shark

Filmation was the cartoon studio that produced low-budget-lookin’ product for Saturday mornings, most notably the “Archie”-related shows and the wonderful Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. One helpful YT poster has given us clips from several of the lesser Filmation shows. Firstly, there’s an item called Uncle Croc’s Block from the 1975-76 Saturday morning TV season which featured Charles Nelson Reilly as a kiddie show host. The concept was that he was supposed to be bad, and the show was supposed to be corny. I think they got those parts right. Here Charles meets one of the great unheralded comics/character actors, Carl Ballantine, as “Sherlock Domes”:



Here’s Phyllis Diller, showing up as a witch:


Filmation snapped up the rights to some hit live-action TV shows and converted them into awful cartoons. They had a Mork and Mindy animated series, but here is the unbelievably awful-looking, time-traveling sci-fi Happy Days cartoon, narrated by none other than Wolfman Jack!



Since it will soon be Labor Day, we have to throw in Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Stand Up? cartoon:



And finally, a series of specials that I remember as being halfway decent, even if they were an obvious ripoff of Fat Albert…: the “Clerow Wilson” series hosted by the real Clerow himself, Flip Wilson: