AMERICA (1982)
A New York janitor wins $10 million in the state lottery, and is
convinced by a public access cable station to
become it's "action reporter" , taking to the streets and uncovering
every lurid and raucous story he can find!
(1:30) (B) - OP
CHAFED ELBOWS (1960s)
An early rare comedy. (1:30) (B) - UR
GREASER'S PALACE (1972)
A Downey parody of EL TOPO
Alan Arbus plays a zoot-suited character named Jesse, who is not
only a Christlike figure, he is Christ!
Enroute to Jerusalem, where he hopes to find work as a
"singer-dancer-actor,"
Jesse finds himself in a
dusty western town. At first, he is targeted for extermination by
town boss Seaweedhead Greaser
(Albert Henderson) but all this changes when he brings Greaser's
son Lamy (Michael Sullivan)
back from the dead. Jesse's healing powers lead to all sorts of
wacked-out complications and,
inevitably, a bizarre confrontation with the town looney, exotic
dancer Cholera (Luana Anders).
Somehow it's not surprising within the context of the film to
confront
such diverse supporting players
as Toni Basil, Luana Anders and Herve Villechaize. In addition,
a very young Robert Downey Jr.
(the son of the director) appears as a Quasimodolike child. ~
Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
(1:40) (A) - OP
POUND (1970)
This allegorical film by Robert Downey finds humans all playing
the
role of animals in cages as
they wait to be gassed. Flashbacks are used to tell the character's
fantasies outside the cage.
It is hard
to tell if the characters are supposed to be animals, although a
depressed prized
fighter plays a boxer
and a bald man (Lawrence Wolf) is supposedly a Mexican hairless.
Robert Downey Jr.
makes an early film appearance
as a puppy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
(1:30) (B) - UR
PUTNEY SWOPE (1969)
After several years working along the margins of the underground
film scene in New York, Downey broke
through to wider recognition with the arthouse hit Putney Swope,
a wildly irreverent satire of race and
advertising in America. Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) is the token
African-American executive at an
otherwise all-white advertising agency when the chairman of the
board unexpectedly drops dead. Through
a fluke in the chain of command, Swope becomes the new head of the
firm, and decides its time to do
things his way. He fires nearly all the staff (except for his one
token white employee), renames the
agency Truth and Soul, Inc., and announces they'll no longer accept
accounts advertising tobacco,
alcohol, or war toys. The ads they do produce -- for acne remedies
and breakfast cereal, among other
things -- are wildly successful, and the iconoclastic ad agency
(which only accepts payment in cash)
is targeted by government operatives as a threat to the national
security. Antonio Fargas and
Allen Garfield lead the supporting cast; Mel Brooks makes a cameo
appearance.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
