Putney Swope (1969)

Putney Swope (1969)



Writer&Director: Robert Downey Sr.

Music: Charley Cuva

Putney Swope: Arnold Johnson

Mimeo: Pepi Hermine



Putney Swope, a token African-American executive at an otherwise all white Madison Avenue advertising agency, happened to be in the right place at the right time. Due to the sudden death of the agency's president, Swope is unintentionally elected chairman of the board. As the new head, Swope decides it is time for change. He fires most of the staff (keeping one token white employee); hires inner city radicals and soul sisters; renames the agency, Truth and Soul Inc.; decides they will no longer accept accounts advertising tobacco, alcohol, or war toys and only accept cash payments. The ads they do produce, Get-Out-Of-Here Mousetrap, Face Off Pimple Cream and Ethereal Cereal, are so cutting edge they are enormously successful. Mimeo, the corrupt midget president of the United States whose major campaign contributor is a car company owned by a Nazi that uses the Star of David as a hood ornament, gets wind of the rising nonconformist agency and concludes it is a threat to the national security.