Double Feature
Watermelon Man
Godfrey Cambridge stars in this outrageous comedy directed by maverick filmmaker Melvin Van Peeples (Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song). Jeff Gerber (Cambridge) seems to have it all: a successful career, a nice suburban home, a progressive-thinking wife (Academy Award®-winner Estelle Parsons, Best Supporting Actress, Bonne and Clyde, 1967) and two cute children. But he’s also a loud-mouthed racist who wakes up one morning to discover he’s turned into a black man. The doctors have no explanation and no cure for his sudden change. Suddenly, Gerber is a white bigot in black skin who has to deal with a shocked family, intolerant neighbors, cold shoulders at the office and a back seat on the bus! (Sony Pictures)
- Director
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Writer
- Herman Raucher
- Starring
- Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard Caine, D'Urville Martin
- Year
- 1970
- Rated
- R
- Country
- USA
- Format
- 35mm
- Running Time
- 100 minutes
Putney Swope
An unforgettable masterpiece of late-’60s counterculture, Robert Downey Sr.’s Putney Swope remains a vital provocation on race, pop culture and America. Putney Swope, the only African-American exec at his firm, is unexpectedly elected its president and turns the industry on its ear through a series of outrageous, taboo-busting TV commercials (strewn throughout the film like comedic landmines.) As Swope becomes the Generalissimo of Madison Avenue, Downey takes no prisoners and skewers the entire political spectrum. Essential viewing. (American Genre Film Archive)
- Director
- Robert Downey Sr.
- Writer
- Robert Downey Sr.
- Starring
- Arnold Johnson, Stanley Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Antonio Fargas
- Year
- 1969
- Country
- USA
- Format
- 35mm
- Running Time
- 84 minutes