GREASER’S PALACE (1972)
Directed by Robert Downey Sr.
91 minutes
Restored by Anthology Film Archives and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Special thanks to Brian Block, Cyma Rubin, and Rosemary Rogers. A delightfully demented, surreal, and subversive religious allegory set in the days of covered wagons and American pioneers, GREASER'S PALACE is, at its core, an avant-garde parody of the classic American Western. Originally pitched as "Christ coming back in a Western," the film follows Jesse (Allan Arbus), a zoot-suited Christ figure, from his sudden arrival at a small desert outpost to his prophesied death soon thereafter. Along the way, and much to the delight and bafflement of the outpost's eccentric population, Jesse performs a variety of miracles, among them a show-stopping boogie-woogie performance in the wooden "palace" of the brutal, de facto leader Seaweedhead Greaser. While GREASER'S only had a short theatrical run, and has rarely been shown on film since, it found an audience years later on home video, as well as prominent champions such as directors Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers. Fortunately, the original 35mm negative, long thought to be lost, was rediscovered in 2017. This rediscovery enabled Anthology to initiate the years-long process of fully restoring this independent classic, Downey's most singular work. "Giant themes, fabulous crazy story-line, brilliant performances, camerawork, editing, music and design, hilarious comedy, unspeakably heartbreaking (but sometimes funny) violence, and transcendent emotional and spiritual richness – GREASER'S PALACE has got it all and it comes together and cooks in a way that makes it impossible to describe GREASER'S as anything less than one of the very boldest and greatest motion pictures ever made." –Jonathan Demme