Babo 73

Taylor Mead plays the president of the United Status, who, when he isn’t at the White House—a dilapidated Victorian—conducts his top-secret affairs on a deserted beach. Robert Downey Sr.’s first feature is a rollicking, slapstick, ultra-low-budget 16 mm comedy experiment that introduced a twisted new voice to the New York underground.


Babo 73 was preserved by Anthology Film Archives, with funding provided by The Film Foundation.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1964
  • 56 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • English

Available In

Collector's Set

Eclipse Series 33: Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr.

Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr.

DVD Box Set

2 Discs

$27.96

Babo 73
Cast
Taylor Mead
Sandy Studsbury
James Antonio
Chester Kitty-Litter
James Greene
Lawrence Silver-Sky
Tom Gaines
Phillipe Green
Credits
Director
Robert Downey Sr.
Producer
Robert Downey Sr.
Associate producer
Hilda Pollock
Screenplay
Robert Downey Sr.
Cinematography
William Waering
Editing
Fred von Bernewitz
Music
Tom O'Horgan
Assisted by
Nicky Zann ‘n’ The Vitamins

Current

Eclipse Series 33: Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr.
Eclipse Series 33: Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr.

These five films chart the unlikely ascendance of a hero of American underground cinema.

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Back in New York with Robert Downey Sr.
Back in New York with Robert Downey Sr.

“It was just fun,” Robert Downey Sr. says of his early New York filmmaking days, in a new interview with Bilge Ebiri for the Village Voice.

Robert Downey Sr. and Paul Thomas Anderson on Babo 73
Robert Downey Sr. and Paul Thomas Anderson on Babo 73
Robert Downey Sr. and Paul Thomas Anderson have been close friends for years. (You can see Downey in a memorable cameo as a record producer in Anderson’s 1997 film Boogie Nights.) Last month, the two directors came to the Criterion Collection offic…