CHAFED ELBOWS (1966)

Walter Dinsmore lives in Manhattan with his mother, whom he also sleeps with—she later says to the camera, "I know it's robbing the cradle but at least it's my own." His voiceover narration tells us that he's in the middle of his November breakdown. Told he's pregnant, a doctor performs a cesarean through his hip and delivers 189 ten-dollar bills, probably because he swallowed a nickel when he was a kid. On the street, a man walks up to him and spray paints his initials on Walter's overcoat, then tells him that he is now a living artwork ("You'll be sold right away because you're very pretentious"). In the middle of Walter's January breakdown, a director named Neo Realism casts him in an underground movie because he "radiates emptiness, despair, futility." He visits his cousin Levitica Zoho who is such a committed vegetarian, she won't even eat animal crackers. When she says she's pregnant, he throws her out her window. He faces murder charges, and is himself murdered, but Heaven (with a neophiliac God who hates dwarves) tosses him back to earth as the Virgin Mary says, "You tell Charlton Heston I'm waitin’ for him!" Walter records a pop song which rhymes "Hey, hey, hey!" with "Black leather negligee," and finally batters his mom to death with a root beer bottle, but she comes back to life, saying, "You can't kill real love," and they get married.

I was tempted to just post that summary with no critical remarks, because really, this is pretty much critic-proof. Written and directed by Robert Downey Sr., this film is one of the earliest to break out of the "underground" niche, or more precisely, to make the underground movies commercial successes. It became a midnight movie staple, and enjoyed runs in legitimate theaters. Nowadays its appeal is primarily historical as an example of a dead genre. It's not so much non-narrative as anti-narrative; you can follow the plot, as it were, but don't expect it to make sense. The most interesting part is its style: a mix of still images and live action sequences. But what makes it still somewhat watchable are the outrageous jokes, some verbal ("It's a universal feeling—or is it Warner Brothers?"), some visual (Walter's mother turns toward the camera to show a huge snaggle-toothed smile, which put me in mind of Edith Massey, the egg lady of John Waters' Pink Flamingos), some situational (a man tries to sell Walter a photo of Margaret Rutherford's ass). Downey is trying to offend people and he succeeds; Walter's brother wants to open an amusement park for white people that will feature Black people being oppressed (to put it delicately), and though you get the satirical intent (the workers will have job security), it's still a little shocking to hear even today. The quality of acting isn't really an issue, any more than in early John Waters movies, but for the record, George Morgan (pictured) makes for a generally appealing lead character, and Downey's wife Elsie good-naturedly plays all the female roles. As an example of 60s underground movies, this can't be beat. [TCM]