In the 1960s, Robert Downey began writing and directing basement-budget, absurdist films that gained an underground following: Balls Bluff, Babo 73, Chafed Elbows, No More Excuses and Putney Swope, the first Downey film to earn a mainstream release. The irreverence continued in later decades with Greaser’s Palace, Pound, Sticks and Bones (a play for the New York Public), Two Tons of Turquoise, Hugo Pool and Rittenhouse Square, a 2005 documentary. Currently he’s finishing a new screenplay.
In the latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, Robert Altman’s frequent collaborator (and also one of the most interesting leading men in Hollywood history) Elliott Gould talks with Robert Downey, the legendary director of such cult comedies as Putney Swope and Greaser’s Palace. To mark the premiere of the new documentary Altman, the two raconteurs not only discuss Altman and his movies, but also aging, marriage, baseball and the state of the world, and tell stories involving Warren Beatty, Francis Ford Coppola and Groucho Marx. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at film.thetalkhouse.com.
The music featured in the podcast is as follows:
1. Intro / outro underscore: “Plastic Man vs. The Giant Red Phase Of The Sun” – Iced Ink
Episode engineered and edited by Elia Einhorn
