Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: To kick off Black History Month, we’re looking back on genre films by unsung or underappreciated Black filmmakers.
When Shaft made a lot of money at the box office back in 1971, it opened the floodgates for studios to come up with more films about bad mofos who take down honky jive turkeys on behalf of the brotherman. Shaft co-writer John D.F. Black was one of the first to capitalize on this demand when he went over to 20th Century Fox to write and produce 1972’s Trouble Man.
You could say Black went about creating a West Coast version of the private dick who is a sex machine with all the chicks. The hero this time around is Mr. T (Robert Hooks), a suave as hell, Los Angeles-based P.I. who mostly does business at a pool hall, where he’s also been known to take hustlers to school. (This is immediately established in an opening scene where he outplays actual pool player James “Texas Blood” Brown.) The plot kicks into gear when a local hood (Paul Winfield) and his white partner (Ralph Waite, best known as the dad on The Waltons) hire T to track down the thugs who keep robbing their dice games. But these guys are actually using him for a scheme where they take over the territory of rival kingpin Big (Julius Harris). Of course, T is sharp enough to know what’s going down, especially when one of Big’s henchmen gets killed after a dice game and he gets accused of pulling the trigger.
Just like Shaft, Trouble is a noirish, pulpy tale that has a Black and proud protagonist front and center. T certainly is one cool-ass man of mystery, the kinda dude who has a beautiful main squeeze (singer/dancer/first woman to show pubic hair in Playboy Paula Kelly), but still has some chicks on the side, ready to help him in getting to the truth. T is also a man of the people, the kind of cat that everyone in the neighborhood knows and comes to for help when no one else will.
Old TV heads may know Trouble Man director Ivan Dixon as Staff Sergeant Kinchloe on Hogan’s Heroes, but he also starred in the 1964 indie drama Nothing But A Man and directed the 1973 adaptation of Sam Greenlee’s incendiary novel The Spook Who Sat By The Door. (He’d go on to direct Waite on The Waltons and the other Mr. T on The A-Team, but it’s a shame Dixon didn’t direct more features about bad brothas who coolly wiped out pale-faced figures who were trying to hold brothas and sistas down.) And, of course, no Blaxploitation movie would be complete without a fly-ass soundtrack by an R&B superstar; Trouble Man had a good one, supplied by none other than Motown golden boy Marvin Gaye. Its tunes have been redone by jazz artists, sampled by countless rappers and even appeared in contemporary films like Four Brothers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Although Trouble Man is a decent, underrated Blaxploitation crime yarn, you won’t be able to find it on any streaming sites. Even Brown Sugar, the platform that was once devoted to keeping all the Blaxploitation classics in one place, doesn’t have Trouble Man in its library. It’s unfortunate how many Blaxploitation films—especially those that were actually directed by Black people—seem to be lost in the shuffle these days. As exploitative as many of these movies were, it would still be nice if films like Trouble Man could easily be found somewhere, just as a reminder that badass, Black movies made by a badass, Black filmmaker starring a badass Black lead, happened once—and could happen again.
Availability: Trouble Man is available on YouTube.
17 Comments
“’T’ Plays It Cool” from the “Trouble Man” soundtrack is one of my favorite Marvin Gaye songs.
I never knew anything about the movie except that the immortal Marvin Gaye composed the music. The haunting theme song is on his greatest-hits album. I’ll try to check out the film and relive my youth.
Even square-ass Steve Rogers knows that!
Black movies made by a badass, Black filmmaker starring a badass Black lead, happened once—and could happen again.
Fun fact: Kevin Hooks — former actor and son of Robert Hooks — directed Wesley Snipes in the action movie Passenger 57. Robert has a cameo role in the film.I think Robert Hooks could have had a much bigger career in Blaxploitation and may have consciously chosen not to go down that path. No disrespect to Richard Roundtree, who absolutely crushed it, but Hooks would have been a compelling Shaft.
Da 5 Bloods qualifies as badass black movie, directed by a badass, starring many badasses.
I consider Da 5 Bloods more a serious drama than a genre action movie, and there have been many films with black leads and black directors since Trouble Man in the ‘70s. Among the most notable genre movies since that qualify include New Jack City, Set It Off, Deep Cover and Black Dynamite, but there are a lot more.
Easier to find? Fox (thankfully) runs it all the time – usually at least twice a month.
[edit] To be clear it is FXM, the Fox movie channel, that runs it all the time. Just pulled up my onscreen scheduler and it show that Trouble Man is on a couple of times in the near future.
Not to mention the YouTube link included with the article or the Blu-Ray that’s readily available on Amazon for us old farts who still use physical media.
Kino Lorber has a print out on Blu-Ray, which I own. Unfortunately, it’s a bare bones release, with the exception of the theatrical trailer, but you at least get to admire Robert Hooks suits in glorious HD.
Kino Lorber Studio Classics put it out on Blu-Ray, if anyone is curious. It’s a bare bones release but the transfer looks great.
I wonder if the other Mr. T got his name from this movie. Also, cool to know that this is where that cool song from Winter Soldier came from.
Easily found if one puts some time into searching for and unlocking it’s hiding place
That opening minute lol-
“When am I gonna see you again baby?”
“ I’m gonna have to think about that girl”
But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community.
Trouble Man and The Spook Who Sat By The Door are both on YouTube for free. Top Of The Heap, which was discussed in another piece, was also on YouTube for a time and hopefully will be again. I’ve found a lot of 70s black/blaxploitation films there. I always search YouTube first and then try Amazon Prime.
Man, I love that closing scene from Four Brothers. A cheesy-ass action movie should not earn such a melancholy ending, but damned if it doesn’t. Marvin Gaye’s musical power knows no bounds.