A silly satire from Iron Man's late father, Robert Downey Sr., "Putney Swope" begins strong as an absurdist depiction of a Madison Avenue advertising agency, including its underlying vacuousness and racism. While the corpse of the last chairman still lies on the table--and freshly removed of his watch and wallet--the agency's board elects its new boss, the board's only African American, the eponymous Putney Swope, because no one was allowed to vote for themselves, and they all thought nobody else would vote for Swope. The new chairman, then, ensures that he'll implement minimal changes at the firm, to which the film cuts to him replacing the white employees of the newly-named "Truth and Soul, Inc." with African Americans--eventually only retaining a single white employee and the stupidest one at that. (One of the funnier scenes involves that employee requesting a raise.) It's a hilarious opening.
What follows is more hit and miss, loosely plotted and frequently scattershot almost to the point of making a Marx Brothers comedy look rigidly structured by comparison, characterizations at times seeming more stereotypical for the mere sake of political incorrectness than satirical, and just a lot of nonsense that seems (to me, at least) inexplicable. I especially don't know quite what to make of the business with a diminutive president of the United States. The film is surely very much a product of its times and being made outside of the studio system, as well, although there is some timelessness to the issues of commercials, corporate ethics and race relations. Stylistically, it's rather well filmed, and I especially like the distinction between the color cinematography for the commercials while the rest of the film is in black and white.
It's also interesting that Downey dubbed his own voice in for that of lead Arnold Johnson, who reportedly had trouble learning his lines. Speaking of random humor, it's funny that my interest was peaked in "Putney Swope," even before Downey Sr.'s recent death, by his son talking about it in an interview when discussing his blackface in "Tropic Thunder" (2008). These Downeys have surely been willing to take some creative risks and poke some fun at their own industry, which alone is worthy of respect.
What follows is more hit and miss, loosely plotted and frequently scattershot almost to the point of making a Marx Brothers comedy look rigidly structured by comparison, characterizations at times seeming more stereotypical for the mere sake of political incorrectness than satirical, and just a lot of nonsense that seems (to me, at least) inexplicable. I especially don't know quite what to make of the business with a diminutive president of the United States. The film is surely very much a product of its times and being made outside of the studio system, as well, although there is some timelessness to the issues of commercials, corporate ethics and race relations. Stylistically, it's rather well filmed, and I especially like the distinction between the color cinematography for the commercials while the rest of the film is in black and white.
It's also interesting that Downey dubbed his own voice in for that of lead Arnold Johnson, who reportedly had trouble learning his lines. Speaking of random humor, it's funny that my interest was peaked in "Putney Swope," even before Downey Sr.'s recent death, by his son talking about it in an interview when discussing his blackface in "Tropic Thunder" (2008). These Downeys have surely been willing to take some creative risks and poke some fun at their own industry, which alone is worthy of respect.