Early Jim Morrison film unearthed in Fla.

[Myxo]

(Will air on VH1 this Friday)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Before The Doors' Jim Morrison made it as a rock singer, he wanted to make films. Now, 34 years after his death, the state of Florida has found and restored what it believes to be the earliest film of Morrison, shot in the early 60s when he attended Florida State University.

It was discovered when the Department of State went through 1,000 films in its archive and may have gone unnoticed if Jaime Madden hadn't noticed a familiarity in the way young Morrison was standing in part of the brief clip.

"He said, 'Oh my god! This is Jim Morrison!'" said Jody Norman, supervisor of the Bureau of Archives and Records Management. "It really tells a lot about an archivists' duty to pay attention to detail."

In the FSU promotional film, Morrison is seen walking to a mailbox and opening a letter. He stops suddenly with his leg thrust forward as a voiceover says, "We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your application."

A little while later, Morrison is in a university office, dressed in a jacket and tie and questioning authority.

"We would like to accept you," Morrison is told. "Indeed, we'd like to offer more courses, more sections, but we just don't have the space that together with the lack of professors."

"But what happened?" Morrison asks. "How come my parents, and the state and the university didn't look ahead?"

Morrison later dropped out of FSU to attend the University of California Los Angeles film school.

The clip was discovered last year among films WFSU a PBS station operated by the university donated to the state in 1989 and was recently posted to the state's film archive Web site after being digitally converted. It will air on VH1 this Friday.

"To see that this may very well be the very first video footage of Jim Morrison just shows you we have such a rich history in our state," said Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who said she was a Doors fan. "Isn't it exciting to know that he is part of Florida State University history and part of Florida history and now people can experience this?"

[Raikus]

There's not much to it at all. I've got a friend from WFSU dropping off the tape to me after work for the Film Society.

A link was up at http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/VideoFilm2/video.cfm?VID=22 but it's been pretty well blown by now.

[Alethia]

jim morrison, shortly before his death, struck up a friendship with sam fuller and showed him an experimental short he had made, i believe - as i recall, fuller said the film itself wasn't much, but it showed a great amount of promise.  they were friends for a while, and then when fuller was writing a script called Riata, he joked with morrison that the villian looked like mick jagger, and jim took that as an oppurtunity to beg fuller to cast him (after fuller's wife said he should seriously consider casting jagger, i believe), and sam said he was too baby faced.  apparently, jim was crushed, because he left and never spoke to fuller again.

but yeah, fuller saw an early short of morrisons.

[Thrindle]

I used to be a massive Doors fan when I was about 14.  Jim Morrison was pure sex.  

As I get older, I don't think his talent warrants the legend he's become.  I've read his poetry, I had the posters.  But at the end of the day, he was a really good looking guy, who liked to cut himself.  Teenaged angst was immortalized by him.

[SHAFTR]

I used to be a massive Doors fan when I was about 14.  Jim Morrison was pure sex.  

As I get older, I don't think his talent warrants the legend he's become.  I've read his poetry, I had the posters.  But at the end of the day, he was a really good looking guy, who liked to cut himself.  Teenaged angst was immortalized by him.

I agree with that.