Chafed Elbows

Okay. Chafed Elbows is without a doubt one of the most unique flicks I've ever seen.

Made in 1966 by Robert Downey Sr. (no clue Pops was a film-maker), Chafed Elbows is a satire that completely dissects and makes fun of almost every single aspect of society. From racism and the police, to incest and music.

Filmed in a very peculiar but successful way, you're shown stills from a scene with very well-done dubbing. It's remarkably effective, especially in the laughs department.

The flick follows around Walter Dinsmore, who basically goes around town interacting with whomever he crosses paths with. From a dude who wants to sell him as a painting because the weirdo painted his initial on his jacket, to his brother who wants to build a racist amusement park so he can help black people.

God this flick was weird. But, it was also good, and intelligent, and funny. Check this out if you're in the mood for good old-time satire.

Chafed Elbows (1966)

** (out of 4)

A man is having an affair with a woman who just happens to be his mother. We see the guy leave his house and encounter several other people where he also suffers some mental breakdowns.

I'm slowly going through the work of Robert Downey, Sr. and to say his films had no plots would be an understatement but it's even more true with CHAFED ELBOWS. In fact, there's really no sort of plot here as we get a bunch of voice-over work, photo stills and every once in a while there's some moving images that often don't add up to much.

I will freely admit that the movie didn't work for me and more times than not it had a very hard time holding my attention. My attention span is usually pretty good but it certainly was all over the place with this film. The satire just didn't work for me and I honestly thought that more could have been done with the whole son-mother relationship.

First off, where did those preposterous ratings come from? Have any of those nincompoops actually seen the movie?

It's certainly understandable if they hadn't, as it is EXTREMELY rare. More's the pity. This movie is a whoopee, stops-out, take-no-prisoners satire of absolutely everything: independent film-making, pop music, American mores, psychology, politics, family, education -- whatever popped into Downey's head. It's completely plot less and totally absurd, and it feels very much like a "Monty Python" episode made by New Yorkers in the '60's.

It's absolutely hilarious and I could go on for days about the performances too (why didn't Elsie Downey and Lawrence Wolf have huge careers beyond their films with Downey?), but let's just leave it at this: if you ever get the chance, SEE IT.

This is among the strangest and most plot less comedies I have ever seen. After thinking about the film, I've realized that it the protagonist manages to be insane and incestuous murderer. The film sort of follows him around over the course of two "mental breakdowns" in which he encounters a "sock sniffer", marries his own mother, visits Heaven, and much more. The film is wonderfully satirical, and it makes fun of almost everything, much like the very best of Kurt Vonnegut's novels.

It's a highly creative work from a highly creative director, the underground filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr. At this point, I'm beginning to really adore Downey Sr.'s sense of humor. It's always very satirical, dark, and offensive, and his filmmaking style is highly experimental, surrealistic, and absurd. All of these elements of humor and filmmaking are right up my alley and it seems that I'm really going to enjoy the rest of the films on the "Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr." eclipse set from the Criterion Collection. I'm seriously looking forward to "Putney Swope"!

George Morgan has affairs with several women, including his mother, all played by Elsie Downey, while he goes through his annual mental breakdown.

I have a big problem writing about Robert Downey Sr.'s mixture of silent and sound film with voice-overs and still-shot sequences on a site devoted to movies. It is absurd. This is not a movie in any sense that we understand it. Oh, you might call it 'experimental cinema', but what then? The general rule seems to be that such experiments are always successful, whether you're looking at the Empire State Building for 24 hours or reinventing basic Georges Melies camera tricks fifty years later. I reject such a standard as being no standard whatsoever. So where are we?

This.... well, this thing looks amateurish, although I do do enjoy the bursts of Groucho-style voice-overs. Over to other opinions.