Robert Downey Sr. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage) *** Local Caption ***
How great is it that the Anthology Film Archives ( A place I often went to back in the late 70’s , early 80’s) is showing films by my dear departed friend Robert Downey, Sr. And they have restored some of them to boot! So you can see a newly restored version of Greaser’s Palace, a surreal Western with Alan Arbus, Michael Sullivan, Pablo Ferro, Toni Basil, LuAnna Anders, Herve Villachez and a host of others. Music by the illustrious Jack Nitzsche. A movie I first saw on the Midnight Circuit at the Park Theater in West Caldwell N.J.
Also a restored version of Putney Swope, Bob’s biggest hit, and a restored version of Sticks and Bones, a David Rabe play produced by Joe Papp, maybe the first work critical of America’s involvement in Viet Nam to air on Network TV. Luckily Peter Powell, the cinematographer had a 2″ tape of it. And the almost never seen Pound, restored from the original negative.
Bob told me that the producer put his profit sharing from Putney Swope on the line for the production of this film and when it went over budget he lost all income from his major hit. Also he said the wife of UA Mogul Arthur Krim saw the film at a NY theater and was so outraged she had her husband pull it from theaters. So it played one weekend. And Two Tons Of Turquoise to Taos Tonight, a crazy assemblage of insane vignettes. But Thanks to whoever financed the restorations! Film Fund? Martin Scorsese? Whoever, Bless You! I’m sure Bob is smiling do=wn from wherever he is.
Finally I watched Beast from Haunted Cave and I have to say I liked it! I am a hugh fan of all things Charles B. Griffith and he wrote the screenplay. There is some great dialog in this film especially a scene between the jaded moll of gangster Frank Wolf and the super straight ski guide. Top Notch. I’m pretty sure Griffith wrote this but I did hear that Monte Hellman might have done some re-writing. To investigate this further I ordeded a dvd of the unreleased Naked Paradise, that Griffith said was actually an earlier version of this same script. I guess when Griffith wrote something and Roger Corman liked it, the story would get recycled several more times. Anyway I did not ge the dvd as the guy running the site seems to be very ill. I hope he’s still alive. It sounds bad. I was very impressed with Monte Hellman’s direction, really just the fact that he pulled off this no budget feature on time and on budget. This had to be very difficult especially because it was Monte’s first film (he was a theater director) and the story takes place in a very snowy wilderness, difficult place to film! But as I say he did a great job.
I met Monte several times back in the day, we have a mutual friend in Rudy Wurlitzer, who wrote Two Lane Blacktop for Monte. Also I was once at his Hollywood Hills Home, he generously let Dennis Bartok have a reading of a script there. Anyway I will track down another copy of Naked Paradise soon and continue the investigation. And if I discover anything noteworthy I will write about it here. Also there are scenes where the Beast of the title captures humans and keeps them alive all glued up in webs in a cave, very effective and I must say a real influence on Ridley Scott’s Alien. Watch it and see for yourself.
