Putney Swope
| Putney Swope | |
|---|---|
| File:Putney Swope.jpg | |
| Directed by | Robert Downey Sr. |
| Written by | Robert Downey Sr. |
| Produced by | Fred C. Caruso Richard A. Roth |
| Starring | Arnold Johnson Joe Madden Antonio Fargas Allen Garfield |
Release date | 1969 (premiere) |
Running time | 84 minutes |
| Country | Template:Film US |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $120,000 |
Putney Swope is a 1969 film written and directed by Robert Downey Sr. and starring Arnold Johnson as Swope. The comedy by a white writer / director satirizes, criticizes and plays with black militant rhetoric, the portrayal of race in Hollywood films, the white power structure, and nature of corruption in any struggle for power.
Plot
Putney Swope, the only black man on the executive board of an advertising firm, is accidentally put in charge after the unexpected death of the chairman of the board: each board member actually believed that he, himself, should be elected Chairman, but the bylaws of the corporation prohibit voting for oneself, so each individual member voted his secret ballot for the person that no one else would vote for: Putney Swope.
Renaming the business "Truth and Soul, Inc.", Swope replaces all but one of the white employees and insists they no longer accept business from companies that produce alcohol, war toys, or tobacco. The success of the business draws unwanted attention from the United States Government, which considers it "a threat to the national security."
Miscellaneous
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (September 2010) |
The American director Paul Thomas Anderson often includes Putney Swope references in his films.
Though the movie is in black and white, the commercials shown in the movie from Truth and Soul are in color.
Fortune Teller Press released soundtrack material to Putney Swope for the first time in 2006. Music was composed by Charley Cuva, who also composed music for Downey's 1970 cult film Pound.
In an interview on the DVD version of the film, Downey explains that Arnold Johnson had great difficulty memorizing and saying his lines during the film shoot. Downey says he didn't worry about it because he had developed a plan to dub in his own voice to replace Johnson's line readings.
The film costars an actor billed as "Mel Brooks"; he is not famed director Mel Brooks.
In the film, Johnny Be Good, with Robert Downey Jr, the trailer for the film appears at a scene taking place at a drive-in. One character quotes 'This movie really sucks".
Quotes
- "The changes I'm going to make will be minimal. I'm not gonna rock the boat. Rockin' the boat's a drag. What you do is sink the boat! And there's no sense sinkin' nothin' unless you can salvage with productive alternatives. And brothers, you can't change nothin' with rhetoric and slogans. Because if a man's really got the truth in his pocket, he doesn't talk about it. He hangs it out on a shingle where people can see it. So from now on, the name of this agency is TRUTH and SOUL."
- "Putney says the Borman Six Girl is got-to-have-soul!"
- "How many syllables, Mario?"
- "I'm stacked up over LaGuardia, and I'm not coming down for anybody"
- "My man uses Face-Off, he's really outta sight (out of sight)... and so are his pimples."
- "Mr. Swope, did you ever sleep with your wife before marriage?" His reply,"Not a wink."
External links
- Putney Swope at IMDb