Hello, my name's Justin the Cluey. I'm here today with

Bill Sloan.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club. And this week, we're talking about

Robert Downey, Sr., a prince.

A record scratch. Yes, that's right. We are not talking about Chaplin himself, Robert

Downey, Jr. We are not talking about Chaplin himself, Robert Downey Jr.

We are instead talking about his father, the famous or the once famous underground filmmaker,

somebody who rode New York's avant-garde film scene like a colossus in the mid to late 60s and

early 70s.

Wow, two whole decade. And someone whose

critical reputation has ebbed and flowed over the years. I think he was for a while long forgotten.

He, in the 80s and 90s, made some kind of bad comedies. But his reputation got a bit of a jolt about a decade ago when

Criterion put out a box set of a number of his early films through their eclipse label. And

Vinegar Syndrome recently did a beautiful Blu-ray edition of his magnum opus, the one that everyone

likes, Putney Swope. Robert Downey-S Sr. is a guy that I saw Putney Swoped.

I liked it.

And I don't think I revisited any of his other film because most people would say,

oh, no, those aren't good.

But we decided to dive in because maybe all of those people are wrong.

Well, about 10 years ago, I had myself a little Robert Downey Senior Marathon when the Eclipse box set came out.

I watched all those films.

I watched Babo 73, chafed elbows, no more excuses.

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