Sometimes it seems like Brad Pitt emerged from the womb this handsome and talented. Not so, it turns out, as pop culture archeologist and LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson recently discovered by unearthing footage from the actor’s little seen 1988 debut “The Dark Side of the Sun.” We imagine these materials were located in a vast warehouse like at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
While the article is worth reading (and watching) in full, the basics are this: a 24-year-old Pitt, looking fresh-faced and acting as awkwardly as Pitt is ever likely to act (that voice over! Egads!), signed on to this barely-watched Yugoslavian drama. It’s got everything—Pitt in a gimp costume not unlike the one in “Pulp Fiction” (something that muffles his trademark voice into an indistinguishable purr), Pitt kissing a dolphin, and a weird romance involving Pitt and his leather-bound alter ego. It sounds amazing.
Nicholson was able to dig up these assets (if that’s what they really are), with the help of University of Oklahoma professor Andy Horton, who served as a co-writer on the film. The movie was supposedly held up due to the Yugoslavian war and questions have arisen as to how much of the movie was actually finished when it was released, sporadically, in the late ’90s. See for yourself what a young Brad Pitt in bondage gear looks like, and read the LA Weekly piece for even more fun, including a poem Pitt wrote for the film’s director.