Robert Downey’s Greaser’s Palace really is just the damndest thing. “Sr.” — as we all now know him, thanks to the affectionate Netflix documentary — released it in 1972, just three short years after the cult sensation of Putney Swope turned him from an underground filmmaker into… well, an above-ground one, at least.
Downey could have cashed in on that success, taking a big paycheck from one of the majors to crank out some kind of lobotomized formula comedy; instead, he followed it with the scrappy, oddball Pound, which is notable (for among other reasons) as the film debut of his son and namesake. Greaser’s shows some of the signs of an earlier financial success; it’s one of his most expansively mounted productions (not exactly a high bar, but still), a surrealist, scatological acid Western riff on the Christ story.
The setting is a nowhere town somewhere in the Southwest — a kind of city-in-progress, a la McCabe and Mrs. Miller (released the previous year, so it may or may not have been an influence), run with an iron fist by one Seaweedhead Greaser (Albert Henderson). This grotesque tyrant demands his loyal subjects sing and dance to his satisfaction lest they die at his feet. He also suffers from chronic constipation. The contemporary parallels just draw themselves sometimes, don’t they?
Into this tinpot dictatorship strolls Jesse, a nattily-dressed dandy played in just the right note of Wonka-esque vigor by the great character actor Allan Arbus (best known for his recurring role as the Army shrink on M*A*S*H, or, to another sector of the audience, as Diane Arbus’s longtime husband). Jesse is a song and dance man — “I’m on my way to Jerusalem to be an actor-singer” — who is, oh yes, the messiah, but in a charmingly offhand way. Sure, he can heal, and bring folks back from the dead (ever the showman, he does it with a catchphrase: “If you feel, you’re healed”), and walk on water, albeit primarily to tap dance.
Hijinks ensue, but it’s difficult to articulate exactly what Downey is up to here. He’s carving out a tone that’s not quite comedy, nor drama, nor Western; it’s too bloody and unpleasant to categorize as an outright satire, but too proudly vulgar to take altogether seriously, and too bizarre to approach as an oater. What is perhaps most striking about it is the sheer audacity of the thing; he refuses to indulge in conventional exposition, to explain much of anything really, preferring to just drop us in and let us figure it out.
Downey’s staging is occasionally clumsy, but he’s taking formal risks that are sort of exhilarating; this is the earliest movie I can think off, of the top of my head, to open with the full closing credits, a fairly efficient way to let your audience know right off the bat that they’re about to watch something that’s going to turn them upside down. He appears to have encouraged his performers to absolutely go for it, to great effect; Henderson is one of the most viscerally repugnant villains this side of Kenneth McMillan in Dune, and Arbus is a gem, throwing off his dialogue out of the side of his mouth, but stepping up when he hits the stage with a vaudevillian performance that’s full-throated and a little nuts.
While not quite a comedy, Greaser’s Palace is full of funny bits (my favorite was the weakling, risen from the dead, repeating his half-whispered “I can crawl again!”) and cheerful anarchy. It’s a fun picture to watch while playing Spot the Influence (and influenced); it may have touches of the aforementioned McCabe and (especially) 1970’s El Topo, but it also predates Blazing Saddles by two years, and I’d be shocked to learn Brooks wasn’t a fan. It’s a film of batshit insane images and sustained peculiarity, designed for both hearty chuckles and maximum discomfort. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and would be surprised if I ever do.
“Greaser’s Palace” is streaming on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi, PlutoTV, and various other ad-supported and a la carte services.