In 1980, Jim Jar­musch made his first fea­ture, Per­ma­nent Vaca­tion, an urban walk­a­bout that’s equal parts stark, alien­at­ed, and fun­ny. Four years lat­er came Stranger Than Par­adise, a film often com­pared to both Yasu­jiro Ozu and The Hon­ey­moon­ers, and the one that made his name in the cinephilic con­scious­ness. Faced with the job of fol­low­ing up this sur­pris­ing­ly (some would say shock­ing­ly) low-key hit, Jar­musch came up with 1986’s Down By Law. His pro­duc­tions have always tak­en pains to assem­ble dis­tinc­tive casts, and this one stars the trio of Tom Waits, Stranger Than Par­adise’s John Lurie, and Rober­to Benig­ni. When the three find them­selves locked up togeth­er in the same prison cell, they devise an escape plan that takes them straight out into the sur­round­ing Louisiana swamps. The film there­fore rep­re­sents Jar­musch’s entry into the genre of the jail­break movie, albeit in the same con­ven­tion-skew­ing, tra­di­tion-dis­miss­ing, tan­gen­tial way that his Dead Man was a west­ern, his Ghost Dog was a samu­rai movie, and his The Lim­its of Con­trol was a spy thriller.

Above you’ll find unseen scenes Jar­musch shot for Down by Law (here’s part two) show­ing a few char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly intrigu­ing moments of per­for­mance from Waits, Lurie, and oth­ers in jail and out on the streets of New Orleans. All of it comes shot in a rich, dream­like black-and-white by famed cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Rob­by Müller, a look Jar­musch tried out in Stranger Than Par­adise and would lat­er per­fect in Dead Man. Though these scenes did­n’t ulti­mate­ly make it into the movie, they nonethe­less come off as clear­ly Jar­muschi­an in their appear­ance and tone. Crit­ics have long con­sid­ered Jar­musch one of the least, if not the least com­pro­mis­ing inde­pen­dent film­mak­er to come out of the eight­ies. You can, of course, see that in the way an entire per­son­al­i­ty comes through in each of his films. But lis­ten close­ly to these out­takes, and you’ll find that even the way he says “action” and “cut” bears the stamp of his cin­e­mat­ic atti­tude.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim Jar­musch: The Art of the Music in His Films

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Watch­ing now-famous actors audi­tion for now-clas­sic films, you can’t help but feel a lit­tle thrill of false pre­science, know­ing how the sto­ry turned out — the sto­ry the film tells, cer­tain­ly, but also the sto­ry of the film itself, and those of the actors’ sub­se­quent careers. Today, hun­dreds of clips of screen test footage, none ever meant for pub­lic view­ing, have found their way onto the inter­net. We’ve fea­tured Mar­lon Bran­do’s for Rebel With­out a Cause, John Belushi’s for Sat­ur­day Night Live, and Audrey Hep­burn’s for Roman Hol­i­day, among oth­ers, here on Open Cul­ture. (And don’t for­get Andy Warhol’s dis­tinc­tive spin on the process.) Few films have become as beloved as the first chap­ter of Star Wars, and few actors have become as famous as Har­ri­son Ford, the man who played Han Solo. Above you see not Ford’s screen test, but Ford assist­ing in that of Mark Hamill, the future Luke Sky­walk­er, and per­haps the man most famous specif­i­cal­ly for act­ing in Star Wars.

“It checks out again,” reads Ford. “There’s no mis­take.” “You can’t find Organa Major?” reads Hamill. “I found it,” reads Ford. “It just ain’t there.” Star Wars enthu­si­asts, a group of some vig­i­lance, will imme­di­ate­ly notice that these stars-to-be read dif­fer­ent lines than they deliv­er in the fin­ished film. A bit of research on Wook­ieepe­dia tells me that Organa Major, known in most ear­ly drafts of Star Wars’ script as Ogana Major, would, in lat­er revi­sions, take the name Alder­aan and become — in Wook­ieepe­di­a’s words — “the home of many famous heroes, includ­ing Leia Organa Solo, Bail Organa, and Ulic Qel-Dro­ma.” Issues of nomen­cla­ture aside, to watch Hamil­l’s screen test is to behold the hum­ble ori­gins of a film that would rise to unbe­liev­able heights of cul­tur­al rel­e­vance, claim­ing a prime spot in the mythol­o­gy of the late twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry West. Yet its gen­er­a­tion-cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mances begin with a cou­ple guys trad­ing lines on mud­dy gray Sony Por­ta­Pak video.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Kurt Rus­sell Audi­tions for Star Wars

Star Wars as Silent Film

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

Star Wars is a Remix

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.