Greetings ***½ (1968, Robert De Niro, Jonathan Warden, Gerrit Graham, Richard Hamilton, Megan McCormick, Allen Garfield) – Classic Movie Review 5377

Co-writer-director Brian De Palma’s 1968 satirical comedy stands out as an early collaboration with star Robert De Niro in a one-moment-in-time story about three Vietnam War draft evaders (Jonathan Warden as Paul Shaw, Gerrit Graham as Lloyd Clay and De Niro as Jon Rubin) trying to fail the American Army’s psychiatric test and getting involved in sex and drugs.

It won the Silver Bear award at the 19th Berlin International Film Festival.

De Palma’s still fresh-seeing movie is lively, episodic, anarchic and satirical, with improvised dialogue, under-rehearsed performances and an air of cheerful amateurism. But the feel of a key time and place (New York City in 1968) is captured very sharply, and, with the benefit of hindsight, it is not hard to see these are bright young talents going places. De Niro stands out in his first major role as aspiring filmmaker and peeping tom Jon.

Also in the cast are Richard Hamilton, Megan McCormick, Allen Garfield, Bettina Kugel [Tina Hirsch], Jack Cowley, Jane Lee Salmons, Ashley Oliver, Melvin Morgulis, Cynthia Peltz, Peter Maloney and Rutanya [Ruth] Alda. De Palma writes with Charles Hirsch.

In the US, it was released with an X rating after losing an appeal to change it to an R. It was the first film to receive an X rating by the MPAA, but it was later given an R.

De Niro, Graham and Garfield returned for De Palma’s 1970 sequel: Hi, Mom!

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5377

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