“
Greaser’s Palace
 is a complete embarrassment. Any filmmaker worth his salt would be embarrassed to have made that film and it’s a work of a genius, a masterpiece…Like Fellini meets The Marx Brothers on a very low budget.” - Alan Arkin
“An extraordinary American vision of something or other…[a film] with no eye on the marketplace whatsoever.” - Jonathan Demme
“An incorrigibly irreverent vision of the universe. A mixture of audacity, rebellion, wild imagination, and runaway chaos. Writer-director Robert Downey is blessed with a gift for the outrageous that no other filmmaker touches.” - Newsweek
Behold 
GREASER’S PALACE
 
(1973), legendary underground filmmaker
 Robert Downey, Sr.’
s (
PUTNEY SWOPE, POUND
)
 stoney, languidly zany and lysergic Western
! 
GREASER’S 
finds Downey, Sr. (“a prince”) at his most trippy, pastoral, and introspective – all qualities that blend with his anarchic style to produce a most lionhearted work. 
Imagine 
El Topo
 
meets 
Life of Brian
 and…well, you’re still nowhere close to what adds up to one of the weirdest Westerns, and religious allegories, of the 70s.
Dig this: we open on a dusty desert town ruled over by one Seaweedhead Greaser (
Albert Henderson
, looking quite a lot like Robert Altman) – a tyrannical, bowel-blocked baron who keeps his mother and his favorite mariachi band in cages, collects taxes from the oddball locals, and runs the titular saloon. One fateful day, Jesse (
Allan Arbus
 of 
M*A*S*H*
 fame), a modest and mysterious young man sporting a 1940s Zoot suit, parachutes into a nearby field, stirring the curiosity of the townsfolk. He comes bearing warning of a demon, named (ready?) Bingo Gas Station Motel Cheeseburger With A Side Of Aircraft Noise And You’ll Be Gary Indiana, who stalks the town, but he’s a man on a mission.
With “the boogie on his fingers and the hubba-hubba in his soul,” he’s on his way to Jerusalem to become a star – "It's written," he says, "that the agent Morris awaits me." Along the way he amasses a bit of a following when he performs a string of miracles – somersaulting on water, raising Greaser’s dimwitted son from the dead with his trademark phrase “If ya feel, ya heal,” curing a man on crutches who promptly falls to the ground, shouting “It’s a miracle! I can crawl!,” and wowing with a nightclub act punctuated by stigmata-soaked jazz hands. He encounters a peculiar cast of characters as he goes, played by the likes of 
Toni Basil
 and 
Hervé Villachaize
, before learning of his intended fate from a bed sheet and bowler hat sporting holy ghost. As it goes with saviors, it’s not long until the locals turn on him and, well...
Armed with his trademark platoon of offbeat character actors and willing amateurs mixed together in a lunatic stew, Downey’s weaves his weirdo Western New Testament allegory, gliding along with its own unique cadence complete with graceful extended takes, fuzzy arcs and the fearless subversion of audience norms.
Subversive, silly, and (potentially?) profound, Greaser’s Palace is a one-of-a-kind oddity that only Downey could deliver.
Special thanks to Bret Berg of American Genre Film Archive.
Dir. Robert Downey, 1973, 91 mins, Unrated (Adult Audiences Only), Color, English, Digital.
Ticket price: $12 (in-person event only).
Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.
ACCESSIBILITY
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REFUND POLICIES
All sales are final. There are no refunds for PRS events
 , except in the event of a medical emergency, including but not limited to a positive COVID-19 test. Ticket exchanges may be granted on a case by case basis, pending circumstances.
In the event that PRS is forced to cancel an event entirely, tickets will be refunded or vouchers offered for a rescheduled event.
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PRS EVENT POLICIES
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Events are subject to change without notice, including guest speakers and/or performers.
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Information Source: The Philosophical Research Society | eventbrite

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