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The New York Underground invaded the mainstream with Robert Downey Sr.’s completely irreverent Madison Avenue satire, in which a token black executive takes over an Ad agency, renames it ‘Truth and Soul’ and goes on a mad reign of creative terror. Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, and Antonio Fargas star in a farce that some critics found intolerably crude — but an independent distributor gave it a national release. 1969 was the year that the Production Code took a tumble — and Downey’s picture proved that freedom of expression was alive and well in the U.S. of A..

Putney Swope

Region Free Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1969 / B&w + Color / 1:37 Academy / 85 min. / Street Date July 25, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Archie Russell, Ching Yeh, Norman Schreiber, Wendy Appel, Antonio Fargas, Laura Greene, Allan Arbus, Pepi Hermine, Larry Wolf, Ronnie Dyson, Shelley Plimpton, Marlene Clark,...

Just how polished does a career-spanning documentary about the anarchic underground filmmaker behind “Greaser’s Palace” and “Putney Swope” need to be? If you’ve seen any of Robert Downey’s films, the answer is obviously: not very. You might even say, the scrappier the better. So goes the thinking behind “Sr.,” a loose seemingly seat-of-your-pants portrait of the antiestablishment director (perhaps best known for siring “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr.) that sneaks up on ya, emotionally speaking, seeing as how it doubles as a kind of farewell exercise between the two generations (plus grandson Exton) in the months before Downey succumbed to Parkinson’s Disease.

“Oddly, it’s sort of what your family does. You guys make art of your lives,” analyzes Junior’s therapist fairly late in the process, not long before dad’s passing. There’s no question that’s what’s really going on in an...

August 5 marks the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. The actress, who was found dead in her home from acute barbiturate poisoning, continues to be remembered for her timeless beauty, charm and painful insecurity.

In her death, Monroe has become an icon and perhaps the best example of how Hollywood destroys its stars. In 1960, Lawrence Schiller (then known as Larry Wolf) photographed Monroe as she went for a swim in the pool -- and emerged naked.

In an adaptation of Schiller's soon-to-be released memoir, "Marilyn & Me", Vanity Fair reveals never before published photos from the star's last photo shoot. The images offer a peek into the friendship that developed between Schiller and Monroe while he photographed her in 1960 and 1962 on the sets of "Let's Make Love" and the unfinished feature "Something's Got to Give," the last film she worked on.

In many ways, Monroe set the road map for...