Made at the height of the Black Power movement, this movie portrays African-American Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) getting made CEO of a corporation after the white CEO dies (the white executives all hate each other and can't decide who should succeed the previous CEO). Once in power, he decides to turn it into a militant organization.

I don't know how Robert Downey Sr did it, but he did it! "Putney Swope" is the ultimate jab at America's power structure. It's the sort of thing that seems like it would have come out of Richard Pryor's mind. This is a comedy classic in every sense of the word. A real masterpiece. Hilarious.

Writer-director Robert Downey Sr. satirizes Madison Avenue and race relations in the modern age (circa 1969),with mixed results. The only black man on the board of an advertising agency is voted in as president after the company's original leader drops dead during a meeting; his name is Putney Swope, and he vows not to rock the boat--he's gonna sink the boat! Downey uses sacred cows as comedic targets, and he's definitely up to the challenge of a rudely hip skewering of marketing and big business (technically, the picture is smooth, clear-eyed and quite well-assembled for guerrilla filmmaking). However, the humor is hostile and occasionally ignorant, and how funny you find the results may depend on your tolerance for outdated racial commentary and stereotypes. ** from ****

I can't say how many times that one line has made me laugh or how often I've described that scene to folks not familiar with this film. I saw it the year it was released, I was 19. I don't think there were a dozen people in that East Village theater that night. For years I thought we were the only ones who saw it. Nice to see here that others found it as hysterical as I had, and see it's lasting value despite the time gone by. Rent it, buy it or steal it.... a must see.