Main Cast: Jonathan Warden, Robert De Niro, Gerritt Graham, Richard Hamilton, Megan McCormick
Release Year: 1968
Country: US
Run Time: 88 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
If for nothing else, Greetings would be memorable as the second feature-length directorial effort of Brian DePalma (his first, 1966's The Wedding Party, was released shortly afterward). A satire of late-1960s manners and mores, the film aims its barbs at Lyndon B. Johnson, Vietnam, the draft, the counterculture, Greenwich Village and the John F. Kennedy assassination. Billed first, Robert DeNiro actually has a supporting role as a young longhair who tries to help his best pal (Jonathan Warden) flunk his Army physical. Gerrit Graham is a JFK conspiracy theorist who may well have good reason to be paranoid. Though largely ignored by the mainstream press in America, Greetings was effusively honored at the 1969 Berlin Film Festival. The film was originally rated X due to its considerable sexual content. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
An anti-establishment comedy, Greetings is the sort of film only the late '60s could produce. And while it superficially has little in common with Brian De Palma's better-known later work, viewers familiar with the director will find a fair share of connecting points, including a voyeuristic young film enthusiast played by Robert De Niro. Any film broken into loosely connected vignettes almost invariably suffers from unevenness, and Greetings proves no exception. For the most part, though, De Palma does an excellent job of sustaining interest. Enthusiastically incorporating -- too much so at times -- techniques from the French New Wave, he creates a richly detailed picture of counterculture males pursuing Kennedy assassination conspiracies, trying out computer dating services, and making films for the basest of reasons (in a scene as film-savvy as any De Palma has ever shot), all the while living in the shadow of the draft. A fascinating and often funny portrait of its time, Greetings should prove interesting even to non-De Palma diehards. Just beware the more experimental moments of the soundtrack by the Children of Paradise. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
Bettina Kugel - Tina; Jack Cowley - Photographer; Jane Lee Salmons - Model; Ashley Oliver - Bronx Secretary; Peter Maloney - Earl Roberts; Allen Garfield - Smut Peddler; Roz Kelly - Photographer; Richard McCormick
Credit
Brian De Palma - Director, Brian De Palma - Editor, Ronald Roose - Lighting, Artie Traum - Composer (Music Score), Eric Kaz - Composer (Music Score), Robert Fiore - Cinematographer, Charles Hirsch - Producer, Jeffrey Lesser - Sound/Sound Designer, Brian De Palma - Screenwriter, Charles Hirsch - Screenwriter
