Review of The Troublemaker

I have waited more than 50 years to see this film. As someone else has pointed out, it has finally appeared in the UK on the quirky Talking Pictures channel, and it was well worth the wait. The zany comedy style is that of the Greenwich Village scene of the time and where much of the film was shot. It marked the film debut of several important players, a remarkable number of whom went on to become directors themselves. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that it was this film that helped inspire Woody Allen to direct. Writer-director Theodore J. Flicker offers a fascinating satire of Greenwich Village society, where the average resident is an artist-poet-sculptor and it's impossible to open a new business without paying everybody off, notably the Mafia. The eponymous troublemaker (Tom Aldredge) tries to buck the system, but eventually surrenders to it. A lot of the jokes (Buck Henry's I'll warrant) are still funny. The visual humour is more variable and with the arrival of the killer dust carts becomes surreal. But what must have seemed bizarre at the time is now commonplace. As many will know, Flicker went on to direct only one major mainstream picture, "The President's Analyst", before fading. My impression is that it was only here, on his first movie, when he was surrounded by such an abundance of like minds, that he was able to do his best. One of my favourite scenes features Adelaide Klein, a comic actress of whom I'd never heard (this was her last film), playing a bonkers psychiatrist, who then attacks her black intern, played by none other than Al Freeman Jnr., who went on to star in "Dutchman". It's an example of the edgy humour that didn't arrive in the mainstream until more than 20 years later. There are also jokes about a paedophile and neo-Nazis. And, yes, that's Tiny Tim (uncredited both on the film and here) as one of the latter. A must-see for anyone interested in the history of comedy.