LITTLE STEVIE SPIELBERG
Even before he announced his presence with authority with 1971's TV movie Duel, Steven Spielberg was honing the craft which would one day earn him the title of the most successful film director in history. Three early films (OK, two clips, and one film), all largely unseen until now, have surfaced through the miracle of the world wide web.
ESCAPE FROM NOWHERE (1959) 13-year-old Steve wins an award for directing a 40-minute war movie.
FIRELIGHT (1963) 16-year-old Spielberg wrote and directed this 140-minute science fiction adventure, which he would later rework as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Budgeted at $400, the film was screened in his local theater and generated a profit of $100. A writer for the local Phoenix newspaper reviewed the film, and wrote that he expected great things to come.
AMBLIN' (1968) Spielberg directs a 24-minute short film about two young drifters, a young man and woman, who after a cute-meet, spend time flirting, hitchhiking, and ... amblin'. It was enough to get a contract with Universal television, where Steve would make a name directing episodes of Night Gallery, Columbo, and Marcus Welby M.D. In case you're wondering if that where the name of Spielberg's production company, Amblin', came from ... why, yes, it is.
So, without further ado, here is some vintage Spielberg.
ESCAPE FROM NOWHERE (1959) clip only - 1:17
(dubbed nicely with Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie)
FIRELIGHT (1963) clip only - 56 seconds
(also nicely dubbed with John Williams CEOT3K score)
AMBLIN' (1968) the entire film - 25:32
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