PUTNEY SWOPE

US, 1969, 87 minutes, Colour/ Black and white.
Directed by Robert Downey.

Putney Swope is a specialist film by director Robert Downey. It did not have commercial release except for screenings at University and club centres. It is an angry, satirical look at the black man in a white created world, that of advertising. The black can beat the white man at his own game. At times the satire is biting, even savage, with incidental knocks at people and institutions. The plot line is not strong, rather this is a coherent string of episodes, skits and black feeling.

1. This film was about black and white. Was it just a comedy? Was there feeling in it? About what? For whom? Against whom?

2. How did the use of black and white film and colour film emphasise this? Successfully ? Why? Urban atmosphere?

3. Comment on the African American atmosphere and style of the film. What differences of impact would there be on this kind of audience and on non-American audiences? Is this to the detriment of the film?

4. The world in which the it was set - the advertising world, how strongly was it satirized, attacked? The opening, the meetings, commercials etc.?

5. What other targets of satire were there: the man dying, the speeches, artificiality, self-concern, attitudes towards blacks (visual examples)?

6. Putney Swope - was he a character or a symbol? His selection, his style, his administration (any better than the whites)?

7. What did he try to do; did he have any purpose or was he just aiming at success and stirring?

8. What images of the black takeover of the white world were given - purpose, effect? How much was this takeover part of the aim and message of the film?

9. The commercials - the swearing, the pimple advertisement, the ad for Lucky Airlines, the ad for the car? What targets? were they effectively done (or an exportation of what they were attacking)?

10. How were conventional blacks satirised ? e.g. the making love under the photo of Sidney Poitier?

11. Comment on the subjection of the whites, the skit on the old black maids of old films by the white maid here.

12. The boy in the service-lift with the gun? why?

13. The Muslim idealist - the black power overtones?

14. The disillusionment of people in the place? Swope’ autocratic style?

15. White's offering money and the significance of the burning of the money? What point did it make?

16. Did the whole film gell or was it just a succession of clever and forceful details? Why was it made - and for whom?