The Clash Star in Hell W10, a Gangster Parody Film Directed by Joe Strummer (1983)

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 4th, 2011 1 Comment

Clash front­man Joe Strum­mer wrote and direct­ed this odd gang­ster par­o­dy in 1983, while the band was on a break from tour­ing. He cast Mick Jones as a well-dressed crime boss, Paul Simonon as his Jim­my Cliff-chan­nel­ing neme­sis, and pret­ty much every­one the band had ever shared a pint with in sup­port­ing roles.

Hell W10 is not exact­ly a mas­ter­piece. The cam­era work is indif­fer­ent, each indi­vid­ual scene lasts longer than it needs to, and we’re not quite sure what the blonde was doing there.  Still, it’s hard not to enjoy any movie with an all-Clash sound­track, and we got a huge kick out of watch­ing Jones scowl in his white tuxe­do like a car­toon Scar­face.

Oth­er high points include the hybrid noir-punk stylings of the titles, and Strum­mer’s own cheeky turn as an aggres­sive cop.

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Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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  • Gordon Alias Me says:
    April 9, 2016 at 2:58 am

    What a great find ! Obvi­ous­ly a curio, very much a doc­u­ment of its time , but great for all that. Nice to hear the ruf­f’n’ready sound­track too . I can imag­ine them hang­ing out around Lad­broke Grove — The Last Gang In Town ! Thanks again, Love and Ting x

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