Adjust Your Color:
The Truth of Petey Greene
review by Bobby Blakey
Documentaries offer up some great stories that people otherwise may never bother to learn about. The latest film Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene showcases the story story of America's first shock-jock, Washington D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, but does it do this icon’s story justice or will it just water down his legacy?
This film isn’t offering up anything new you haven’t ever seen in a documentary before, but where it lacks on taking it to a new level it more than makes up for it in content. Greene’s charismatic personality alone could have filled the entire film alone, but hearing the stories of what he did for other people and his true passion is truly inspiring and fun to watch. Obviously there is tons of footage of Greene himself, but there is also a great amount of interviews to showcase his story including Sugar Ray Leonard, James Brown, Chuck Brown, Howard Stern in his appearance on his show and Don Cheadle handling the narration. For fans of Stern that have heard the sound bite of his appearance on Greene’s show they use that appearance as a big moment in his career, but allow it to evolve into all the good he did for the people that he came across as well as never glossing over his own troubles. This film is poignant and entertaining giving the man the showcase that he deserves. While there are a lot of the interviews it is the archived footage of Greene doing his thing that really makes this film all the better. I could watch Greene all day and it is amazing how relevant his thoughts and views are still do today in every way.
If for some sad reason you have either never heard of or seen any of Petey Greene’s shows then you are sadly missing out. This movie serves as not only a great piece to teach those who haven’t been a part of the Petey Greene experience, but also the perfect film to serve as an archive for a legend in the industry. In the times we live in this film is all the more important so grab your copy of Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene available now on DVD and Digital from Virgil Films.