Audience Member
Brought back a bunch of memories. A must see, well made documentary. Truth is stranger than fiction!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
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Audience Member
I'd kind of forgotten about Morton Downey Jr., but this documentary brought back my high school memories of watching his over-the-top talk show where he'd get in the face of Nazis, Ron Paul, or just about anyone who appeared on his show. I'd never though of him as anything more than a joke but this documentary makes the case that Downey paved the way for more "legitimate" of provocative political talk show hosts like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and such. I'd also forgotten about Downey's downfall after he faked being attacked by Nazis, which was a blast from the past.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
"Is this a passing fancy or is this in front of the wave?"
Former Today Show host Bryant Gumbel asked this of rabble-rouser extraordinaire Morton Downey Jr. sometime during his meteoric rise to the top of syndicated television. The quote very appropriately concludes this exceptionally entertaining documentary chronicling Downey's life and career, and its answer is quite clear. Downey might not have known exactly what he had on his hands, but the popularity of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and others proves Downey, mad man that he was, operated way ahead of his time.
The son of a famous Irish crooner, Downey spent much of his young adult life trying to strike it big in the music industry. He had a few moderately successful records, including 1958's "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams", but it wasn't until 1987-at the age of 55-that Downey acquired the fame he'd sought for decades.
The Morton Downey Jr. Show debuted in New York-New Jersey markets (the program was filmed in Secaucus, NJ), but it wasn't long before the show's popularity (as well as that of its host) exploded, and before the show's one-year anniversary, it was being nationally syndicated. The content of the show was unlike anything else being broadcast at that time. Downey tackled politics, current events, and other very touchy subjects in as explosive a way as you can imagine. He shouted at everyone. He fought with those he disagreed with. He insulted guests, cursed on air, and encouraged an impossibly rowdy audience (known as "the beast") to get in line behind him with pitchforks and torches.
The show-which you'll see a lot of in clips throughout the film-is something else. Though you'll see the seeds of Beck and company in what Downey was trying to do (assuming Downey even knew what he was trying to do), Downey's production is almost completely foreign to us today. While populist fire-breathers have taken over TV news, no one is really doing what Downey did. His show was much more confrontational. Jerry Springer, despite the disparity in subject matter, is a more apt comparison. But as far as Bryant Gumbel's question goes, was Downey in front of the wave? It's hard to argue the guy doesn't belong on the conservative "info-tainment" Mount Rushmore.
Downey's downfall is swift and obvious. As he gets bigger, he constantly needs to outdo himself, and he simply can't without losing that vestige of authenticity that made him so big in the first place. Then there's the question of whether or not Downey even knew what he was doing. He's aware of the cameras, of course, but the guy has a vicious temper and a crippling inability to ward off vices. He's a chain smoker (something that would kill him a little more than a decade later), and he LOVES beautiful women. During his show's run, we see him woo a woman he'd later marry after divorcing wife number three.
His downfall was complete after an incident at an airport which saw Downey fabricate a story about being mugged by neo-Nazis. He drew swastikas on his clothing and cut his own hair. The police never found any evidence of a mugger or muggers, and though Downey denied faking it to the day he died, his friends and colleagues interviewed here confirm the incident was all Downey's doing.
It's hard for a documentary chronicling such a fascinating figure to fall flat, but Evocateur features a number of touches that make it something pretty special. Because so much of the film is archival footage, directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger employ highly stylized animation that serves as both an entertaining way to transition between sequences and a useful way to get shots, facial expressions, etc. that are otherwise impossible. The directors also assemble a quality and knowledgeable group of talking heads, including Gloria Allred and Alan Dershowitz, both of whom were frequent guests on Downey's show. In addition to these famous faces, we hear from a group of former die-hard Downey supporters, the show's creator, its producers, and a former aide to the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who was a friend if not a political ally of Downey's.
It's certainly possible that the more Left-leaning viewer will find Downey's antics too much to handle, but that wasn't the case for me. And it's not as if the filmmakers mock him; they seem to hold nothing but reverence at least for what the man accomplished. Mostly, this is an even-handed approach, which I appreciated, and it's arguably the most entertaining documentary I've seen since Exit Through the Gift Shop.
http://www.johnlikesmovies.com/evocateur-the-morton-downey-jr-movie-review/
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/10/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Piercing through the paper thin facade of Downey's hyper conservative character, the doc umentry paints a picture of pain and desperation. As terrible a persona he played on tv, the deep darkness that Downey lived in as he chased the ghost of his father's success was heavy. And, in the same instance, it thoroughly rips the curtains down on all the current conservative character "Infotainers" like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Andrew Napolitano and others. They're all just riffing on Downey's well-worn track albeit with much more restraint. Restraint that ultimately adds to their staying power and pseudo legitimacy and a restraint that Downey himself lacked and caused him to burn out in 2 short years. In truth, Downy ripped it all off from Joe Pyne, a conservative blatherist who came before him. Both of where struggling Disc jockeys who blew up by dialing in on the rage of the lowest common denominators. They even both died of Lung cancer. The parallels are uncanny.
For a show that was only on 2 years and ended over 25 years ago, this documentary feels contemporary in the current climate of faux news and amped up outrage.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I have to admit that ever since news of his death from lung cancer in 2001, I hadn't given much thought to Morton Downey, Jr. Not to seem unkind, but truthfully, there wasn't much to think about. Downey's legacy in television history is so forgettable that the subsequent generation has no idea who he was. If you've ever seen "The Morton Downey, Jr. Show" you probably have an idea why.
For 20 months from 1987 to 1989, Downey ran a self-titled TV talk show that was part-riot, part-circus, a little bit Jerry Springer, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and a dash of Michael Moore. What would come of his show would be an example, not for others to follow, but for others to correct upon. Downey's show was a loud, obnoxious and fairly monotonous platform of screaming and bullying, the format of which (he said) was to give a voice to the silent majority. Actually, it was a textbook case of ratings at any cost - Downey wasn't shy about this. It was a platform for cheer-leading sensationalistic bad behavior. His audience, comprised mostly of young college kids, behaved as if they were attending a hockey game. Downey screamed in the faces of every kind of guest from vegans to the gun nuts to the KKK and even celebrity guests like Ron Paul and Alan Dershowitz. Famously, he clashed with Al Sharpton over the Tawana Brawley incident, in which the young woman falsely claimed that she was raped left for dead by six white men and then covered in hate slogans and feces. The story would be exposed as a fraud, and it would be the first of several incidents that would bring the show to a sudden stop.
The new documentary "Évocateur: The Morton Downey, Jr. Movie" examines Downey's brief rise and quick demise from television. This is a professionally-made, talking-head documentary that features interviews with former colleagues, family and friends who try to help us get inside Downey's head to figure out what drew him to become the screaming meemie of late-night television and what personal demons drew him to television and what led to his eventual downfall.
We learn that he was a bitter man, the son of a celebrated Irish Tenor (whom his son loathed) who was a friend and neighbor of the Kennedys. The junior Downey grew up in the shadow of his old man, even attempting to launch a singing career of his own. His singing voice was competent but unremarkable. His looks weren't exactly top drawer either. He bore a strange resemblance to Don Knotts. Despite his familial legacy, Downey would become a walking irony. He would make his living destroying his voice, by screaming on television and chain-smoking four packs a day.
Downey would prop himself up as the voice of the angry right-wing Republican, sort of an Archie Bunker with a lectern - even down to the smoking habit and the white collared shirts. His show wasn't exactly insightful. Fellow talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael remarks that his show was "that prurient excitement of not-nice people saying not-nice things." His show would turn talk shows on their heads. The common thread of talk shows in the mid-80s was the polite, conversational style of Phil Donahue, Merv Griffin and a newly minted Chicago-based neophyte named Oprah Winfrey.
The difference between Downey and his contemporaries (even Springer) is that they stayed off-stage, letting the audience run the circus. The mistake was that Downey tried to play the role of ringmaster, lion-tamer and lion, and so the show had nowhere to go. His singular quest was ratings and he got them, until the television audience grew tired of the act. The movie doesn't shy away from the facts of why the show - and Downey's career - came to an bitter end.
The movie finds some measure of pity for Downey, but it never backs down from the fact that he was the propagator of his own downfall, particularly with the Tawana Brawly incident. After the demise of his show, Downey would try to make headlines
by falsely claiming to have been beaten up by skinheads in an airport men's room. After that, nothing he could do would peak anyone's interest, not even an attempt to become the damaged voice of anti-smoking when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. When he died in 2001, the public reaction was barely a whimper. The result of this documentary is the pitiful, but not unmoving, story of a man who build his house on sand and got caught in his own trap.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Trump before trump. The birth of the RWNJ industrial complex.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
Full Review
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