stage/screen

'Putney Swope' a Mis-Happening

By EMERSON BATDORFF

If there ever was a movie in which the manufacturer tried to substitute raw vigor for common sense and self discipline, "Putney Swope" is it.

It stumbles from one raunchy bit to another as though it had been made by precocious, dirty-minded high school pupils out to show the world how funny they are.

On its way it touches on a few high spots of humor. usually satirical, and a lot of stuff that falls flat on its face. Occasionally it

wrests a surprised laugh from some in the audience by its free use of dirty words.

Almost all the players have a fine sense of comedy: some of the ideas are surprisingly funny. The movie's strong point is its directness. It's weakness lies in its inability to sustain interest in a series of almost unrelated chaotic events.

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The main cat is the title role played by Arnold Johnson. Putney Swope is black man, the only black man on the board of a big advertising agency. Through

"Putney Swope"

Shaker

Occasionally funny, often repulsive series of semi-related vignettes that never coalesce into a worthwhile picture. Adults only. 84 minutes.

Written and directed by Robert Downey. Produced Herald Productions. Inc. Cinema V. Putney Swope Mrs. Swope Bodyguard

The Arab and 87 others.

Arnold Johnson Laura Greene Buddy Butler Antonio Fargas

on the

a miscalculation part of the whites he gets elected chairman thereof, whereupon he throws out all the whites.

He is a man of conscience and will not accept ads for cigarettes, whisky nor war toys. The latter brings screams from his associates. "Suppress a kid's destructive urges and you'll make him a homosexual or worse," one of his staff points out.

Johnson, who has a voice like sawing wood, rasps his way around the office, the peculiar routine of which is punctuated by the showing of TV commercials made by the agency. It is largely in these that the movie lives its sex life.

Laura Greene, who started singing in Cleveland and went on to New York, is bright and brisk in the movie, although her role is not large. It is not a role in which she covers herself with glory, nor anything else much, either, from time to time.

"Putney Swope" is said to have been directed by Robert Downey but I doubt it. I don't think anybody directed it. It just happened as it went along.