I spent the past few years on the trail of the long-lost film You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It. The only way to make journalism like this viable is through the direct support of subscribers. If you appreciate my work and want to help me do more of it, please upgrade to a paid subscription today. Thank you, as always, for your interest!
Earlier this month, I published an in-depth oral history of You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat, Peter Locke’s gonzo 1971 counterculture film with a soundtrack by a couple of upstart songwriters named Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. The movie had a brief theatrical run 14 months before Steely Dan came out with their debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, and by all accounts hasn’t been seen in the 55 years since. No home video release. No revival house screenings. No Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. Nada.
Back in early 2022, when I was first mapping out the topics I wanted to explore in Expanding Dan, the origin story of You’ve Got to Walk It was immediately on the short list. Even better, I thought, would be finding a reel of the long-lost film and sharing it with Danfans who, like me, have been itching to see it, despite Becker and Fagen’s withering comments over the years about the movie’s substandard quality. I refused to believe that the film was really, truly gone. Perhaps no one had looked diligently enough or in just the right places.
