Man Trouble DVD

Harry Bliss is a wise-cracking con man and owner of the House of Bliss Guard Dog Agency. A sexy, single female hires him for protection, but when they get together, it's nothing but trouble.

MAN TROUBLE, the fifth collaboration between Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson, is a comical thriller. Nicholson plays Harry Bliss, who runs a guard dog service and is going through counseling with his wife, Adele (Lauren Tom). A serial killer is on the loose in Los Angeles, and when the apartment of classical singer Joan Spruance (Ellen Barkin) is ransacked and she starts receiving threatening phone messages, Joan moves into the Hollywood Hills home of her sister, Andy (Beverly D'Angelo). However, Joan doesn't feel safe there either, because she's harassed by Andy's ex-lovers. So Joan hires a guard dog from Harry's company, and soon Harry is providing more than protection for the beautiful singer. Harry is a natural-born liar who, because of his profession, feels that he lives by a code of honor--even if he can't quite explain it--and Nicholson plays him with comic exasperation, as one thing after another spins out of his control. The usually tough-looking Ellen Barkin is soft and vulnerable, as she is badgered by her conductor husband, harassed by unknown callers, menaced by men from her sister's past, and "helped" by Harry. Harry Dean Stanton and Saul Rubinek provide fine support.

Theaterical release: July 17, 1992. Shot on location in Los Angeles, California. MAN TROUBLE is the fifth movie on which director Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson have collaborated. Nicholson did not appear in Rafelson's HEAD, but co-produced and co-wrote the Monkees vehicle. He went on to star in Rafelson's FIVE EASY PIECES, THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS, and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. For MAN TROUBLE, Rafelson and Nicholson reunited with producer-scriptwriter Carole Eastman who, under the name Adrien Joyce, wrote the script and co-wrote the story for FIVE EASY PIECES. In 1967, also as Adrien Joyce, she wrote Monte Hellman's THE SHOOTING, which starred Jack Nicholson. Eastman was reportedly so unhappy with what Rafelson did to her script for MAN TROUBLE that she disowned the film and pledged never to work with Rafelson again. Meryl Streep was initially intended for the role of Joan Spruance in MAN TROUBLE. She withdrew when she became pregnant, and was replaced by Ellen Barkin. The music for MAN TROUBLE was written by the great French composer Georges Delerue. Estimated budget $29 million.

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