Cheap Putney Swope (DVD) (Arnold Johnson) (Robert Downey Sr.) Price

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Customer Reviews of Putney Swope

This has got to be the most outrageous comedy about blacks to come down the pike ever, until Keenan Ivory Wayan's "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka" came out. The movie centers around a token black guy who sits on the board of an ad agency, and, due to the death of the chairman of the board during a meeting he is present at, gets voted chairman simply because all the voters thought nobody ELSE would vote for him!

You might think that Putney, being the token black guy on an all-white ad agency board of directors, would be a dyed-in-the-wool Uncle Tom...far from it! His redo of the agency, renamed "Truth & Soul, Inc.", turns it into the media equivalent of the Symbionese Liberation Army, with militants, "Shaft"-like bodyguards, Antontio Vargas dressed as a black muslim, complete with burnoose, and a staff FULL of major attitude. The insane, slapdash themes and staging of commercials the agency does are viewed as inconoclastic by the effete clients they take on, and their ads actually increase sales for some companies!

This is the kind of film which ITSELF is made so crudely and sincerely, that it works on that level with a heavy dose of cheeky cleverness. It's mostly in black and white, photographed WAY too dark in some spots, with some color spots for featured commercials...and you'll be surprised to see a young Shelly Plimpton singing a jingle with a VERY negroid young man named Ronny Dyson who had once been a habitué of the 60s Merv Griffin Show.

You'll also recognize "Dr. Sidney Greenbaum" from "M*A*S*H" and Laura Greene, one of those nameless character/commercial actresses that were all over TV and movies in the 70s...

The treatment of the white characters in the film is, to be polite, gruesome...they're ridiculed, pushed around, mistreated and disdained. Blacks are lampooned mercilessly too, as when a white delivery boy finally snaps after being constantly told to use the freight elevator. He breaks into the board room during a meeting, brandishing a gun, and a black bodyguard, who previously had made a point of whipping out HIS gun whenever someone wouldn't cooperate, keeps searching his pockets and waistband for the gun when it's NEEDED Stepin Fetchit-style; not to mention the "Birth of a Nation" way the black run agency is portrayed...this movie barbeques EVERYBODY....

Anarchic, smart-assed, angry, funny, crude...words to describe this late-60s specimen. It's worth every penny and if you're a boomer, funnier than (hades)!

Remember when film was interesting?
Robert Downey's greatest success. This film was originally described as a 'metaphor for everything' when it first came out. It is an irreverent, unpredictable, relentlessly hilarious, almost dadaist black and white opus dei that was inspired by the directors work in an advertising firm.

It focuses on a 'token' black man on the board of directors for a upscale advertising agency, whom ends up running the entire organiztion when his constituents vote for him thinking no one else would while electing a new leader.

The actors were all part of a very peculiar clique and appear en masse in a wide spectrum of subculture films from the era.

Anyone with an even passing interest in non-conventional cinema should watch this movie religiously. Its been a huge influence on my own tastes, and this sentiment if shared by virtually everyone Ive ever met who has seen it.

swope
Most older movies seem tame. Not this one! "Putney Swope" doesn't pull any punches and is STILL ahead of the times as far as portraying race relations in an honest and funny way.

A word of caution: This movie is extremely low budget and extremely irreverent. Much of it seems made-up from moment to moment. But there are some hilarious, brilliant moments in this.