Robert Altman’s First Film Found at Flea Market (Free to Watch Online)

Long before Robert Alt­man gave us MASH (1970), Nashville (1975), The Play­er (1992) and Gos­ford Park (2001), he paid his dues in the film indus­try, shoot­ing 65 “indus­tri­al movies” dur­ing the 1950s. One such film recent­ly sur­faced in a Kansas City flea mar­ket, and it’s believed to be Alt­man’s first film. Gary Hug­gins, also a film­mak­er, told SF Week­ly, “I bought a stack of old instruc­tion­al films for $10 and nev­er got around to screen­ing them.” “Mod­ern Foot­ball [the title of the dis­cov­ered footage] sound­ed real­ly dull. But when I recent­ly did, I glimpsed Alt­man, who cameos as a sports reporter, and knew I had some­thing incred­i­ble.” Find the 26-minute film above, and the cameo at the 2:37 mark. Then con­sid­er catch­ing up with Alt­man six years lat­er when he c0-direct­ed The James Dean Sto­ry at the start of his Hol­ly­wood career. Watch the Dean doc­u­men­tary online, or find it housed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online.