I'll Put It On The List, Part the Third: Troubleman
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson tells Steve Rogers to listen to the Troubleman soundtrack, which it would catch him up on everything that he missed and more. Since I decided to go all out on his list, I figured I’d do the same with the one album that was openly mentioned in the movie. I bought a copy for a few bucks on EBay rather than downloading it. That way, no offense, I could toss it after I was done with it. Editor's note: I think I'll keep it.
The movie and its soundtrack came out in 1972. Troubleman is a 1972 Blaxploitation movie about a private detective who gets involved with a case about robbery and murder. It was the first soundtrack that singer Marvin Gaye released. Gaye had really come into his own as a singer, releasing What’s Going On the year before. Sadly, Gaye was killed by his father in 1984.
Sam mentions the soundtrack in the beginning of the movie and then he plays a track while Cap is recuperating in the hospital following his battle with Bucky (he did get shot multiple times and survived a fall from an exploding helicarrier into the Potomac River. In Falcon and The Winter Soldier series, Bucky uses the same notebook (guess he didn’t feel like going to CVS) to write a list of the people he wronged as the Winter Soldier. Zemo evidently reads both lists and says that Troubleman is “...a masterpiece. Complete. Comprehensive. It captures the African-American experience.”
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_Man_(album)) “reaching number 4 on the Soul Chart and number 7 on the Pop Charts, respectively, the album followed in December where it reached the top 20 of the Billboard 200, peaking at number 12. On Cashbox and Record World Magazines Charts the album even reached the Top 5.“ It was recorded on a Motown-owned record label Tamla Records.
Based on my experience with other Blaxploitation soundtracks (namely Shaft and a Ice-T produced album from the 1990’s) I was expecting something...funky. The Rolling Stone review from the time backs me up on that: “Gaye, like Mayfield, has created a score strong enough to be completely independent of the film. It’s not a lot of fluff wrapped around some slick images and obvious themes; mostly, it’s sweet and churning jazz that abstracts the action rather than decorating or interpreting it.“
My Soundtrack Review: It starts off as a light jazz-type music with a little funkiness, a basic drum beat and lots of horns. Very cinematic. It continues to go on to be more Blaxploitation funky but not up to Shaft level. At one point you get to the melancholy but you know something's going down part. Then Marvin Gaye actually singing the victim's name ("Abbey Walsh") and literal plot line of the movie ("they're gonna blame it on T"). The next track goes a little heavy on the piano and horns. The tracks go seamlessly into the next bit which is nice and are relatively short. Then there's a little sexy time with Gaye warbling some notes with lots of "Ooooohs." Track 6 is the one you recognize from the movie (when Cap is recuperating in the hospital with this playing on his IPod). Lots of Gaye singing and funky instruments. What appears to be bongo drums start in around track 8. It gets progressively funkier. You can definitely hear Gaye's Troubleman theme throughout, it's very recognizable. By track 10, the music seem to point to the future; it’s a lot of futuristic synthesizer music that wouldn’t seem out of line for Rick James. And more Marvin Gaye warbling. Marvin ends the album with more funky horns and singing "Don't mess with Mr. T." I’m not sure if I hear everything Steve missed while he was a Capsicle, but maybe I’m not the right demographic. As a soundtrack goes, I liked it. I actually enjoyed the in-movie soundtrack more but this was definitely the Troubleman soundtrack.
Then there’s the movie itself. The 1972 version involves a P.I. named Mr. T (not to be confused with the A-Team actor less than 9 years later). Oddly enough, it was listed in both a worst film list and the best Blaxploitation movie list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_Man_(1972_film). Sounds to me like it didn’t do so good box office-wise. And, yes, I did watch the movie. It was streaming and I was curious. Going into it blind, it was actually a well-shot movie with bright sets and pure 70’s costumes (there’s even a guy dressed like a pimp). The story-line is about a set-up, crime syndicates, and getting away from the Man. It’s a complicated movie!
Here’s my notes, in no particular order:
- Mr. T is played by Robert Hooks, a stage and Star Trek movie actor. I recognized several of the actors in their younger incarnations, especially Terminator actor Paul Winfield who plays Chalky. Then there’s the white man\bad guy: Ralph Waite (he played John Walton Sr and Gibbs’ dad on NCIS). Gordon Jump from WKRP in Cincinnati also played a corrupt slumlord that T leans on
- Mr. T has no less than 4 babes that he canoodles with. He also has numerous clothing changes but always looks good in a suit. He changes suits all the times, looking fly. His main thing is this: he looks after the people in his neighborhood, and puts right what went wrong. He makes deals, ya dig?
- He drives a land yacht, a 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV 2-door hardtop. His apartment is one big bedroom and closet. And lots of rotary phones
- His office is out of a pool hall and goes up against a pool hustler named “Texas Blood” who always seems to shank his last shot. There’s also Jimmy, who owns the pool hall. but T is in charge. Jimmy is T’s buddy, secretary, assistant, and weakness. The actor was in City Slickers among other things. The pool hall was apparently located on Western Avenue in South Central Los Angeles: 3024 1/2 W. Western Avenue in Los Angeles according to Google
- He’s got a great vintage 60’s Coke Machine that I couldn’t help but stare at: what appears to be a Cavalier CS-72. Nowadays, it’s apparently a very rare, very highly sought-after machine. Now, I'm no expert so I could be mistaken about the model number. It costs Mr. T less than a quarter to buy a Coke in a bottle. I’m a big American Restoration and Coke fan and notice the weird stuff like this…
- Mr. T gets involved with a complicated yet easy to follow crime story where he is framed for a murder, then is pursued by cops (corrupt and otherwise) and gangsters. He’s hired by two former pimps turned gambling crime lords (white dude and black dude) who will pay him $10,000 to put an end to robberies plaguing their games. They play a sweaty game of craps in an abandoned apartment while the 2 pimps set up T for murder. You should watch it to get all the gangster nuances. Chalky kills the guy they set-up while T watches and puts all the pieces in their places
- He also has a nemesis in the main homicide cop Joe, they don’t like each other. Being the Man, the cop desperately wants to bring T down in an overtly racist way. T never squeals to the cops (just like Suge Knight says) and will handle it himself. He also hates pimps. He also doesn’t like cops, especially the main homicide detective. But he sure seems to know a lot of them, being licensed for everything a Troubleman (an apparent profession) may need, including PI
- The music in the movie is far funkier than Marvin Gaye’s actual soundtrack. It gets a little too jaunty and inappropriate in a particular scene of T breaking into the bad guys’ place
- Mr. T has great lines: “you see to that baby or I see to you, ya dig?” and “Keep an eye on my car, sucka.” He also refers to getting main bad guy’s Pete’s “honky ass”
- The blood is so fake looking
- He cares for his main squeeze, a singer who won’t go to Vegas without him, which he encourages. He also starts the movie with an entirely different bikini babe and ends the movie with a young cop babe, whilst still retaining all the babes in his entourage
- T is also smart-smart as well as street-smart. He gets out of a jam that fake cops put him in by killing a gangster boss in the pool hall. The Man tries to get him, put him in jail, but it doesn’t stick, baby. He learns. In the final sequence, he also steals his own gun out of police lockup to use in the upcoming battle – it couldn’t have been him, his gun’s been here the whole time. It’s a plot hole a mile wide but nobody ever follows up on it. Couldn’t he have gotten another gun and a decent alibi?
- Mr. T has an excellent karate chop, and his gun style appears to be just jumping all over the place, shooting the bad guys and trying not to get shot himself (a couch jump was quite humorous)
- He sneaks around buildings a lot, it was apparently filmed at the now demolished Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. It’s hard to keep track of where T was, you see signs for banks and “Joseph M” something. He’s jumping, he’s running, he’s going long distances for no reason. There are also long sequences of him sneaking into an old movie theater (the United Artists Theater) by going through a dumbwaiter but cleaning the soot off his suit
- Pete’s office is also apparently where he lives as well, complete with a 70’s pimped-out bedroom with lots of mirrors. T survives all the bad guy encounters and even changes his suit (that he keeps in his car) and puts his gun back in police HQ, getting away scot-free with a police babe as a kind-of alibi. It was all blamed on fellow gangsters
- The film also features a boxer named Danny “Little Red” Lopez. Lopez was just starting his boxing career in 1972. He was WBC Featherweight champion and defended his title 8 times. Guy is a legend in the boxing community. There’s also mention of Vladmir Wazniski, a bigamist who married five women
- There was also a 2025 reboot with Spawn actor and martial artist Michael Jai White. Haven’t watched that one yet
- I wonder what Mr. T is up to today. Still protecting his people? New suits and new ride? Robert Hooks is 89.
- Here’s my final tidbit about Troubleman: the cops make a big deal about Mr. T taking a Paraffin test (gunshot residue) and then T trying to not get caught because of the Paraffin test. Apparently, in 1972, the same year this movie came out, cops were told not to rely on the Paraffin Test to determine if a suspect fired a gun. Thanks, Google
There you have it. Troubleman. Soundtrack and movie, straight from the Falcon’s mouth. I think the soundtrack survived the decades only because it has Marvin Gaye attached as its primary artist. He’s Marvin Gaye of Motown fame, baby. Both the movie and the soundtrack have cultural significance that I can’t hope to fathom but the two of them are fun!
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