Putney Swope along with a number of other films: Uptight, Zabrieski Point, The Spook who sat by the Door, Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy depicted the times of the big change of America like no other. No matter how much conservative America may want to pull the country back to the pre-60's these films show that the change became irreversible. Putney Swope has its problems(editing and much of the acting is amateurish)yet holds up well for being over forty years old. The topics still ring quite true. While viewing this one can't help but wonder if the folks that make the AMC show MADMEN are influenced by this film. The ending, though funny, has a politically horrific feel to it. A foreshadow of 9/11? The irony that Robert Downey is the father of one of America's best and most popular movie stars adds to the entertainment and poignancy.

Black and white satire of a Madison Avenue ad agency being taken over by blacks. They're headed by Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) who is determined to change things. However he turns out to be even WORSE than his white predecessors. That's about as original as this gets.I'm sure this was considered daring and shocking in 1969 but it just seems silly today. The jokes are either unfunny (the president is a midget. HOW is this funny?), cruel or obvious and the film is full of unlikable characters. It's done in a very experimental way which makes it even harder to take...or understand. The movie just gets more bizarre and surreal as it goes along. The ending comes out of nowhere. To make it worse, with the sole exception of Johnson, ALL the acting is bad. Antonio Fargas (a regular in these types of films) is especially annoying as the Arab. This gets three stars because the commercial parodies (done in bright color) ARE amusing and there's a rare good line here and there. I heard this was a cult classic but this is more interesting than good. Skip it...unless you're in experimental 1960s films.

This movie got better with time. I can't believe that it has been forty years since I saw this at the age of 15. Yes, that's right. Movie ratings were not yet a reality, so any teenager could walk into any movie. Imagine what it was like for a kid my age to see both Midnight Cowboy and Putney Swope in the same year. Imagine the times. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King has just been killed but the following summer had a man walking on the moon and Woodstock. Putney Swope was the Woodstock nation's chance to stick it to the man. You'll see where Robert Downey, Jr. got his sardonic brilliance. His old man was an instant hero to kids like me. No punches are pulled in this classic, and aging hippies will rejoice when they relive this era. Hopefully, new flower children will be emboldened by it, and this current era of fascism will come under the same scrutiny my era was subjected to.

Writer & director Robert Downey, Sr., a pioneer of the underground film movement in the 1960s, satirized the New York Madison Avenue advertising world with his avant-garde comedy "Putney Swope." Downey doesn't confine his ridicule to advertising, but tackles black militant culture, the dynamics in Hollywood's portrayal of race, the elite white power structure, and character of corruption in any power struggle. As audacious and ambitious as "Putney Swope" strives to be, it qualifies as a terrible film, amateurishly made on a shoe-string budget with a no-name cast and humor that lacks hilarity. Everything about this movie reeks with improvisation. "Putney Swope" stirred up controversy during its initial release with its politically incorrect handling of race issues and consumer culture. Like most Marx Brothers movies, the plot is thin, providing an excuse for Downey's anecdotal gags, most of which are terrible.The chairman of a prestigious Madison Avenue ad agency dies during a board meeting. Before the body has been removed, the board holds a secret ballot vote to determine who will replace him. Each member understands that they are forbidden to vote for himself. Sheer accident occurs when everyone votes for the token black member, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson), since none thought anybody would cast a ballot for him. Swope pink slips all but one of the white executives, surrounds himself with black, pistol packing employees, and renames the firm "Truth and Soul Advertising." Swope decides to alter the face of American advertising. He refuses to accept clients whose products are alcohol, tobacco, or war toys. Swope's clients stage an exodus after he becomes the CEO, and grandstanding attracts a new line-up of clients that show up at his office lugging bags of money and prepared to suffer abuse from Swope's militant employees. Swope exploits his African-American staff, too, ruthlessly appropriating their ideas after he fires them and conjures up a number of offensive advertising campaigns, all of which are hailed as a 'new wave' of marketing genius. Incredibly, Swope's conservatism proves successful but the agency becomes the target of government operatives who argue Swope's advertising tactics constitute "a threat to the national security." The high point of this black & white, 85-minute comedy are the television commercials shot in color. Unfortunately, Downey doesn't know when to cut off these ads that consistently start out cleverly but wear out their welcome. The funniest part of "Putney Swope" involves our eponymous protagonist's dealings with U.S. President Mimeo in Washington D.C. (Pepi Hermine), a marihuana-toking midget with a Kissinger-like Teutonic adviser (Larry Wolf) spouting tasteless jokes while trying to convince Swope to come up with an advertising campaign for his new car, the Borman 6.