Robert Downey Sr., a guerrilla auteur who acquired his suffix after Junior became a movie star, combined sacrilege and satire in his signature work. That combination was once a rarity in American cinema outside of fare seen at small film societies and DIY screenings. He also mixed fatalism and sexual japeries, recalling Lenny Bruce’s rude comedy, with his youthful origins as a playwright showing in the logorrheic vernacular of his characters’ voiceovers and monologues. Downey’s mix of rapid cuts, handheld location shooting, and improv-like narrative digressions still makes for an engaging fusion of experimentalism fused with the showmanship of a vaudevillian.
Downey’s Putney Swope uses the most mercenary of white-collar professions as a metaphor for racial tension (and African-American infighting) in the societal cauldron of 1969. The film is set at a Madison Avenue ad agency where the CEO dies in a meeting and—with the chief’s body still warm on the conference table—the board inadvertently elects their token black member (Arnold Johnson, dubbed by Downey) to succeed him. Seizing his opportunity to play with the big boys, the newly empowered Putney vows, “I’m not gonna rock the boat; I’m gonna sink it,” and renames the agency Truth & Soul.
Barring accounts for alcohol, cigarettes, and war toys, and populating the office with an all-black staff (save for one token white exec) whose politics range from assimilationist to Panther militancy, he produces transgressive TV spots—seen in most of the film’s few color sequences—that produce a media shitstorm. The parodies mock the “cool” marketing aesthetic with trendy music and framing supporting indecent content, as a passenger for Lucky Airlines enjoys an orgy with stewardesses, and an interracial collegiate couple serves as mascots for pimple cream, scored to a syrupy ballad: “Girl, I saw your beaver flash/I’ll never be the same.”
Making a film with a reasonably linear narrative for the first time, and eschewing Black Is Beautiful agitprop or a shred of sentimentality, Downey presents Putney as a hard-ass who’s about as avaricious and corrupt as his predecessors. For one, his flunkies chant numbing catchphrases (a spokesgirl has “got to have soul”) in place of thinking, save for a burnoose-wearing hellion called the Arab (Antonio Fargas), whose abuse Putney patiently indulges.
There are characteristically baroque gags in Downey’s earlier style, such as a German-accented dwarf as a polyamorous U.S. president, and the plot ultimately flags under an ambivalence that seems to parallel Truth & Soul employees’ restlessness, but the film’s skepticism of both radical chic and the corporate establishment retains a refreshing maturity, as the advertising chief’s wardrobe changes from Nehru jacket to Fidel Castro’s cap and fatigues mark him as an avatar of fashionable autocracy. Putney Swope significantly altered Downey’s career when it was picked up by a national distributor and was a sleeper hit, becoming a totemic satire of its era. Yours truly first saw it in 1979 when it played on a wide re-release double bill with John Landis’s Animal House, a much more comforting picture of subversion.
Image/Sound
Sourced from a 4K restoration, Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray renders the film’s black-and-white cinematography in crisp detail. The table of the advertising firm’s boardroom positively gleams, and contrast levels are finely separated, from the dark levels of suits to the neutral grays of soundstage walls. The color scenes are also impressive, as the exaggerated hues of Truth & Soul’s commercials are well saturated and no less finely detailed than the monochrome scenes. The lossless mono track perfectly balances the film’s antic, overlapping dialogue, with each voice distinct in the mix as the characters bicker at length.
Extras
An audio commentary with Robert Downey Sr. is a treasure trove of production details, such as the filmmaker’s amusing recollection of the black actors who played Putney’s new executives needing to hide under the boardroom table during the opening scene because the crew wasn’t allowed to hang out outside the room. Downey also shares numerous anecdotes about his efforts to secure financing and distribution for this groundbreaking indie. A second audio commentary track finds critic Sergio Mims breaking down the film on more formal levels, explicating its thematic acidity and its shrewd parody of advertising. Two archival interviews and a 2005 screening Q&A with Downey delve into the director’s inspiration for the film and his approach to independent filmmaking, as well as how the film became a hit after being rejected by the major studios. Finally, Gerald Cotts explains in another interview how he came to work on the film, his first as a cinematographer, and his experiences on the shoot.
Overall
Robert Downey Sr.’s freewheeling satire of advertising, racial tensions, and the exploding (and imploding) counterculture receives a gorgeous and supplement-rich Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome that attests to the continued relevance of this cult classic.
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