Greaser's Palace

Yeah, what those comments above this one say. It's really weird. Even if your not out to see the symbolism which is included in everything this movie does, you won't be able to turn away. At times it resembles a car crash; something in you says maybe you should look away, or just go about your business, but are somehow unable. A must see.

The unexpected box office success of 'Easy Rider' at the end of the 1960s opened all kinds of doors for all kinds of people. Suddenly there was a new "youth market" to be exploited. Thousands of hip kids were getting stoned and watching the likes of '2001' and 'Easy Rider'... mmm, what might they want to groove behind next? The old school film execs were baffled for the most part, and this allowed De Palma, Coppola, Altman, Scorsese, Ashby and Bogdanovich and others to get their big breaks. This period has been discussed a lot recently in books and documentaries, but what about the freaks who didn't become household names? What about say Robert Downey Sr and 'Greaser's Palace'?? Look I've seen some weird movies in my time, but 'Greaser's Palace' could well be the weirdest American movie of the 1970s! I have no idea whether Downey was familiar with 'El Topo' or not, and Hollywood had already dabbled in hippie Westerns with 'Zachariah' the previous year. Maybe these movies were some kind of influence on him, I don't know, maybe it was synchronicity. Even trying to describe this film makes it hard to believe it ever got made, watching it is even more bizarre. See, it's kind of a stoner's parable about Christ. Allan Arbus (who subsequently had a recurring role on 'MASH' the TV series and played the baddie in Jack Hill's blaxploitation classic 'Coffy') is Jessie, a zoot suit wearing fellow who parachutes into a wacked out town in the Old West. The town is run by Seaweedhead Greaser (Albert Henderson). His daughter Cholero (Luana Anders) is a burlesque performer, his son Lamy Homo (Michael Sullivan), well I don't know what he is exactly but he keeps getting killed and comes back from the dead describing his visions of the afterlife ("I was swimming in a rainbow with millions of babies... ...and they was naked......and then all of the sudden I turned into a perfect smile!"). Jessy just wants to sing and dance and get to Jerusalem where "the Agent Morris" awaits him, but he becomes a messiah figure for many of the townsfolk, which irks Cholero no end. Then you've got a topless Indian girl (Toni Basil), a gay midget (Herve Villeechaize), and a guy walking around wearing a sheet who I assume is the Holy Ghost (Ronald Nealy). Making sense? Maybe if you smoke as much weed as seemingly went into making it! Arbus is terrific throughout and it's always cool to see Luana Anders. She was one of the most interesting actresses of the period, appearing in cult favourites 'The Pit And The Pendulum', 'Night Tide', 'Dementia 13', 'The Trip', 'Easy Rider', 'Evil Roy Slade' and 'The Last Detail', and working with key figures Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. If you like weird movies then 'Greaser's Palace' is a must see!

Quite simply one of the odder incarnations of a Jesus story: in a desolate town in the middle of a borax desert in the late 19th century, where Herod has a serious case of constipation, the holy ghost is a cigar smoking actor under a white sheet with eye-holes and a mouth cutout, and Jesse aka Jesus wants to be a song and dance man. But the people won't let him be. Alan Arbus is dry and laid back in the role, always puzzled and not at all a mystery. Downey hit the high point of his career with this one, possibly the last movie he made without someone looking over his shoulder. I wish he'd the opportunity to continue exploring filmmaking of this type.

Jesus comes back to the old west as a 1930's song-and-dance man in a zoot suit and takes on local strongman Mr. Greaser, whose struggles with constipation are painful to witness. I love this film. It will never be selected as entertainment for anyone's church youth group, but its fresh take on Christianity make for a wild and very original ride.

Favorite moments: Lamey Homo protesting his dad, Mr. Greaser's, disciplinary methods, "I dreamed I was swimmin' in a rainbow and there was millions of babies and they was naked...Dad? I don't want to die any more." Dad's response: "Then behave yourself!" Sibling rivalry on the part of the Holy Ghost protesting God the Father's refusal to let him take on some of God the Son's perks (like being crucified): "You'll never know what I can do because you never give me a chance!" Jesus healing the paralyzed man, who is seen later in the film crying, "I can crawl again! I can crawl again!"

It took me a moment to identify which character was supposed to be Judas, until the woman settler, who goes through so many terrible disasters, began counting out thirty pieces of silverware.

It is somewhat disjointed, and definitely sacrilegious in spots, but those drawbacks are very minor. This is an original, savagely funny film.

I'm sure there's no such thing as a perfect robert downey movie, but some are better than others; some Downey movies are even better than other movies, generally speaking - and for its best sequences & acting, this obscure, lysergic cinematic parable, rates as one of the most memorable & thought-provoking films I've ever discovered. Downey is super-Altman; the Christian satire is simultaneously Neitzschean & Brautiganesque - Allan Arbus is excellent.

Downsides to the movie are several, & typical of this filmmaker - easily a third of the movie is incoherent boring & gratuitous - Downey's self-referential homages to family & friends are typical of independent filmmakers; Downey has literally taken this type of nepotism to the level of art, but it never succeeds, in any of his movies. Yet none of his other films achieve the kind of profundity this one at least occasionally does. & in spite of its excesses & shortcomings, the film brims with political & poetic energy & ideas. Quite probably this is the work of a director who thinks the raggedness & incoherence & navel-gazing are all enhancements, or at least necessary to The Experience (etc., etc.). Bow-tied think-tankers might remain unmoved by the delicate insights of Downey. But I'd have to go so far as to say Greaser's Palace stands as a far more compelling & visceral evocation of the drug dazed visionary daydreaming that preoccupied so many well-endowed minds in the sixties & very early seventies than do, e.g., Nicholson's 'Head' or Hopper's 'Last Picture Show'. Downey, Arbus & Co. at least have much more brain to fry.