Putney Swope

This movie shows that the free enterprise system and the quest for the almighty buck transcends all racial and ethnic barriers. Ultimately the market place determines the message that is sent to the public. This movie dramatizes that point. A conservative white-collar advertising company is taken over by a group of street-wise African Americans chaired by a no-nonsense black man who wants to make a buck and believes he can sell products by telling the the truth. But the movie shows that no matter how hard he tries to do something different, the market place and the political system demands that he conform, rendering him no different than his predecessors. Interesting, off-beat movie.

I can't say how many times that one line has made me laugh or how often I've described that scene to folks not familiar with this film. I saw it the year it was released, I was 19. I don't think there were a dozen people in that East Village theater that night. For years I thought we were the only ones who saw it. Nice to see here that others found it as hysterical as I had, and see it's lasting value despite the time gone by. Rent it, buy it or steal it.... a must see.

"Putney Swope" is a unique, low low low budget gem from the late 1960's which probably would have been forgotten in time if it hadn't been for two things: Paul Thomas Anderson (who named Don Cheadle's character in "Boogie Nights", Buck Swope, after the eponymous hero of this film) and the limited DVD release. Watching "Putney Swope" is like listening to hardcore punk rock: it may not make a lot of sense (at least to me it didn't upon watching it for the first time), but you have to respect the film for its passion and unabashedly rebellious message. I didn't understand a lot of things about "Putney Swope", but for the most part, I liked it. The more I think about the movie, the more it grows on me.

The film is advertised as a parody of New York's Madison Avenue, best known in the 1960's as the advertising capital of the world. Members of Generation X and Y may be lost on this concept, but fortunately "Mad Men" is on TV to provide us with this otherwise lost piece of U.S. History. What you need to know before watching this movie is that these ad agencies were largely male, and even more largely white establishments.

With this premise in mind, the movie opens up with an ad agency board meeting. The members are predominantly white except for Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Dick Gregory in this film), the token African-American on the board. The board members are so self-absorbed and soulless that when their chairman falls dead in front of them, their only concern is who will become chairman next. Without even removing the body from the boardroom, they begin a paper ballot to elect the next chairman.

Putney Swope is elected by a landslide, but not because the other members think Swope is qualified. Voting for Swope was an ill-fated attempt for these board members to sabotage any other member's chance of being elected chairman. With their plans backfired, Swope takes charge and "sink(s) the boat", firing all but one of the original members and hiring all people of color in their place .

After this point, the film became (for me) very weird and hard to follow plot-wise. There may not have even been a plot, really. The whole idea of the film seems to be a "what if" scenario, with the result being that the new "Truth and Soul Inc." firm would be unconventional, but successful nonetheless. The firm ends up making so much money that the members build a huge glass case to keep the cash in for unexplained purposes. It could be because Swope doesn't trust banks, although that point is not touched upon or explained in the film. It could also be metaphoric in some way, but who knows.

Most of the movie takes place inside the ad agency, with occasional scenes in the White House with a president who, for some unknown reason, is a midget. My assumption is here that some political joke was being made, but I can't figure out what. Were the filmmakers saying that the president is a small, insignificant part of American life? Were they saying that the latest elected officials (Nixon at the time) were insignificant candidates? I don't know. I found it a bit eerie, however, that the man playing the president bore a striking resemblance to future president Ronald Reagan. It is funny to make that connection 40 years after the movie was made.

What this film may have benefited from is showing how consumers outside the ad agency reacted to the new ads. Of course, the ad footage possessed a strange, funny appeal for its unconventional creativity, but did these ads convince people to buy the product? If so, how? The movie hinted on the idea that the new ad campaign was successful through client interaction and the calls from the White House. However, it would have been revealing to see average people, since that demographic has always been most profitable for advertisers.

Although the parodies and political messages this film may have made probably didn't stand the test of time, this film still had a lot of unique qualities. Arnold Johnson had a magnetic X factor to him that benefited him greatly in this film. Swope's rough voice was actually director Robert Downey, Sr.'s voice dubbed in, sometimes poorly, but fit the character so well in being an authoritative outsider. He hires and fires workers at random, but earns the respect of all but one of the employees for revolutionizing the ad agency and seeking out new ideas.

The premise of the film was, and still is, incredibly risky, especially since the film was written and directed by a white man (Robert Downey, Sr.). However, this film declines to fall victim to negative black stereotypes which would lead to the rise and fall of the blaxploitation genre years later. Although some of the sex scenes may be a bit off-putting for some viewers, the main message is that a black owned and operated business can thrive through innovation and risk taking. Many people may not take a positive message away from this movie, but I just did.

"Putney Swope" remains an overlooked movie from a strange era, and Downey, Sr. (even despite his son's recent comeback) never quite got the recognition as a director he deserved. However, if you find a DVD of this movie, buy it and watch it. If it's on Netflix, ditto. It's a movie that can be confusing at times, but is worth watching for its gusto, ambition, and its non-conformist stature even by today's movie standards.

When someone refers to the independent cinema realm in the United States it's often inferred that it means the filmmaker or people behind the project had much more creative freedom and did what they wanted. This, today, is not really always the case unless someone is a solid "auteur" and creative freedom still comes with the caveat that one has to find distribution with one of the independent divisions of major studios or by getting picked up somehow for some kind of low-level deal at a worthwhile film festival. But Putney Swope, Robert Downey Sr's film about a tough-as-nails African-American accidentally promoted to head advertising guru at a production company, *is* independent cinema, the kind of work that went right along with the likes or Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Cassavetes Faces at the same time of getting no real typical studio distribution but causing waves, kicking ass and taking names in the cinema world. For all its moments that are rough and crude, it's unforgettable.

It's also a film that is funny, very and excruciatingly funny. Sometimes the sense of humor is just so ridiculous it's nearly impossible not to laugh, from the mere appearance of the President Mimeo with his wife to lines of dialog from the advertisements Swope's team puts together like "I can't eat an air conditioner" in a real "soul" voice. It is as smart as the audience it is aiming at, which is anyone with two brain cells to put together who can see that this work isn't offensive or *too* shocking because it's meant to rattle the cage, and it does this pretty well in the first five minutes. Once that's past Downey Sr goes on his blitz of sorts as far as being a filmmaker with nothing to lose: his protagonist is part Fidel Castro, part Isaac Hayes circa 1972 (and yes it's 1969 in the film) and part hard-assed ad exec with a firing streak to make Mr. Spacely on the Jetsons look kind. And don't forget those side characters, dear God.

There's so many memorable lines and moments that it's hard to keep track. From maybe the most hilarious botched assassination attempt in any movie to the one ad for "Face-Off" skin cream that includes lines that would give South Park a run for its dirty-mouth money, to just little asides with the one guy from Jack Hill's movies playing the Muslim who keeps giving lip to Swope and that one boy with the the nun who curses up a storm and impresses Swope in a swift stroke. It's a pretty direct message about media and advertising, but there's also a lot of powerful moments where it just hits the nail on the head about racism in America, sometimes without having to do more than a gesture and sometimes with doing something HUGE like having black panther types going this way and that around Swope's advertising regime. And for a low-budget production (I mean super low, hence the comparison to Night of the Living Dead and Faces) Downey got some really good actors, all non-union, and it's hard to imagine that some of them might have had their first time on camera here.

It should be mentioned that Downey's style doesn't make it perfect: it is crude and sometimes too crazy and dated for its own good, and I'm sure I didn't get some of the underlying humor of a couple of the ads since I'm from a full generation after these ads were aired (albeit the "Miss Redneck Jersey" was definitely not lost on me). In general though this is one of the finest of its time period, a satire that stings and a feature with a predominantly black cast that is all too knowing of what comes from an excess of power, regardless of skin color. It is, as someone might say, "good s***."

When Robert Downey Sr. Passed away recently, I realized that I had only seen bits and pieces of this, his signature film. Even today, one can see how this Underground meets mainstream (by way of the counter-culture) satire struck a chord at the time.

A Madison Avenue advertising firm whose Executive Board "accidentally" votes to elect the sole black man, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson), as their new chairmen - because they all thought the others would be too racist to vote for him. Swope cans most of the execs and installs people of color to most of the important positions of power. Swope has a white maid and makes a low level white man ride the freight elevator etc. Etc..

The basic kernel of an idea is a good one, and there are moments here. Unfortunately, the tone is dry. So dry as to be arid most of the time. The idea of turning the tables has some punch, but, most of them land pretty softly. The Un-PC tone has only gotten more so over the years.

The highlights are the TV commercials the firm, now dubbed Truth And Soul, Inc., produces - including a standout pimple commercial for 'Face-Off' cream with an interracial couple singing idyllically in the park. These sequences are the only scenes shot in color. They add some life, but, the fim doesn't really have any momentum. There are bits and pieces everywhere but they don't really add up. Swope hires and fires at every whim, but we rarely see anything get actually accomplished, yet the firm is supposedly swimming in cash and has advertisers literally begging to get a piece of Swope's wisdom. Even in a farce, there has to be some verisimilitude.

The mostly little known cast is dotted with performers like Allen Garfield, Antonio Fargas and Allan Arbus (Mel Brooks has a blink and you miss it role). The most amusing casting is dwarf actor Pepi Hermine as the German accented President of the United States. Director Downey dubs his voice in for Arnold Johnson, and his gravely delivery dominates the movie. Watching PUTNEY one can't help but notice how Robert Downey Jr.'s voice as the "black man" in TROPIC THUNDER has an uncanny resemblance to his father's here.

PUTNEY SWOPE delivers some jabs, but, in the end, it's one of those films which is more famous for its impact than it is actually successful.