The Troublemaker Movie Review

Three years before The Graduate, Buck Henry, then 34, wrote and co-starred in this quirky early indie about naive young Jack Armstrong (played by stage actor Tom Aldredge, then 36), who comes to The Big City and gets taken advantage of by just about everyone in Manhattan. Henry plays the role of T.R. Kingston with wicked glee, and Joan Darling, then 29, is most appealing as the city girl with whom country boy Jack forms an attachment. Industry support for indies at this time was not what it would become in the late 20th century, which makes this pioneering effort an impressive harbinger of Things to Come. Joan Darling paid her dues as secretary Frieda Krause in Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law between 1971 and 1974, then received a chance to direct a theatrical feature for Paramount, 1977's First Love (with Susan Dey, William Katt, Beverly D'Angelo, John Heard, Swoosie Kurtz, and Robert Loggia). She returned to the big screen after helming Doc, Phyllis, Part V of Rich Man, Poor Man AND after winning two Emmy nominations for directing, one for “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” a 1975 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and another in 1977 for “The Nurses” episode of MASH. Even so, industry support for women directors at that time was not what it would become in the late 20th century, either: the so-so film sank at the boxoffice, and the excited buzz about Darling faded quickly. Theodore J. Flicker, 34 in 1964, worked with Darling and the late Godfrey Cambridge again when he wrote and directed Paramount's The President's Analyst for James Coburn in 1967. (He also wrote and directed AIP's Three in the Cellar for Joan Collins and Larry Hagman in 1970 and directed Soggy Bottom USA for Don Johnson in 1982.) And Al Freeman Jr., who'd torn the screen apart in 1967's Dutchman opposite Shirley Knight, went on to collect Emmy nominations for My Sweet Charlie opposite Patty Duke and Roots: The Next Generation before finally winning for daytime drama One Life to Live. Buck Henry, with enough talent and energy for several careers in several lifetimes, remained close to his indie roots and played the role of the gun-toting Harold Goldman with wicked glee in Nick Davis’ first indie, 1999. The Troublemaker, filled with mischievous fun and youthful high spirits, has yet to be released on video, but it often surfaces on the Bravo cable network.

1964 80m/B Tom Aldredge, Godfrey Cambridge, Joan Darling, Al Freeman Jr., Buck Henry; D: Theodore J. Flicker; W: Buck Henry.