Buck Henry Movies
Buck Henry's meek and mild, ordinary guy demeanor belies a razor-sharp dry, wry wit that he aptly applies to his screenplays, the roles he portrays, and the projects he directs. Born Buck Henry Zuckerman to a successful Wall Street broker (who was once an Air Force general) and actress Ruth Taylor, Henry launched his career as an actor at age 16, plying a small role in the Broadway version of Life With Father. During the Korean War, Henry served with the Seventh Army Repertory Company touring Germany performing in a musical comedy that he wrote and directed. During the '50s, Henry became somewhat famous for perpetrating the famous SINA hoax -- the acronym stands for the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals -- that made Henry a popular figure on talk shows where he would claim that naked animals were the cause of humanity's moral decay. In 1960, Henry worked briefly in an improvisational troupe before moving to the West Coast to write for the popular television satire That Was the Week That Was with hosts Steve Allen and Garry Moore. He and fellow comic Mel Brooks collaborated in 1964 to create the pilot for the successful spy spoof Get Smart. That year Henry also collaborated on the screenplay and starred in The Troublemaker, but it was not until Henry's second collaborative screenplay for The Graduate (1967) -- he also played a small role -- that he became one of Hollywood's most in-demand screenwriters.In 1973, he and Warren Beatty were Oscar nominated for their joint effort Heaven Can Wait, a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). In the film, Henry played the small but crucial role of the heavenly escort who goofs and brings a football player to heaven too soon. Henry was a periodic host on the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live during the '70s. Through the '80s and '90s, Henry continued to occasionally write screenplays and play supporting roles in feature films. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1964
A midwestern hayseed takes on the Big Apple in this comedy. He goes because he is tired of running a chicken farm and thinks it might be more fun to own a coffee house. But before he can, he must deal with a myriad of crooked city bureaucrats who won't issue the necessary license until he pays them off. The comedy and trouble begin because, he refuses to do it. Still, thanks to his more worldly friend, an attorney who secretly pays the crooks, the hayseed gets his coffeehouse. He is so vocal about his moral outrage, that the officials involved decide they must abduct him and hide him away in a looney bin to keep him quiet. Unfortunately for them, it takes more than an asylum to stop the stubborn young man from destroying their careers. The humor in the film is largely improvisational and this is no surprise as it is based on the comedy of "The Premise" a Greenwich Village-based comedy troupe. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Aldredge, Joan Darling, (more)
"Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) would rather float in his parents' pool than follow adult advice about his future. But the exhortation of family friend Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) to seize every possible opportunity inspires Ben to accept an offer of sex from icily feline Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The affair and the pool are all well and good until Ben is pushed to go out with the Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotages the relationship and an understandably disgusted Elaine runs back to college. Determined not to let Elaine get away, Ben follows her to school and then disrupts her family-sanctioned wedding. None too happy about her pre-determined destiny, Elaine flees with Ben -- but to what? Directing his second feature film after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols matched the story's satire of suffocating middle-class shallowness with an anti-Hollywood style influenced by the then-voguish French New Wave. Using odd angles, jittery editing, and evocative widescreen photography, Nichols welded a hip New Wave style and a generation-gap theme to a fairly traditional screwball comedy script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel. Adding to the European art film sensibility, the movie offers an unsettling and ambiguous ending with no firm closure. And rather than Robert Redford, Nichols opted for a less glamorous unknown for the pivotal role of Ben, turning Hoffman into a star and opening the door for unconventional leading men throughout the 1970s. With a pop-song score written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel bolstering its contemporary appeal, The Graduate opened to rave reviews in December 1967 and surpassed all commercial expectations. It became the top-grossing film of 1968 and was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress, with Nichols winning Best Director. Together with Bonnie and Clyde, it stands as one of the most influential films of the late '60s, as its mordant dissection of the generation gap helped lead the way to the youth-oriented Hollywood artistic "renaissance" of the early '70s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, (more)
- 1968
This World War II comedy finds Harry Frigg (Paul Newman) as the unwilling volunteer slated to rescue five generals from the clutches of the Germans and Italians. Frigg would rather spend his time goofing off than fighting the war, but his superiors make him a fake general and pack him off to retrieve the top brass. He has a romantic interest in the Countess (Sylva Koscina), an Italian beauty who helps Harry locate the missing officers. Tom Bosley, Andrew Duggan, Charles D. Gray, Jacques Roux and John Williams are the five generals who carry most of the comedy. Normal Fell and Buck Henry excel in small roles as well. General Prentiss (James Gregory) is the brains behind the plan that finds the frustrated Frigg rise to the occasion when he reluctantly accepts his assignment. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Sylva Koscina, (more)
- 1968
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In this big-budget adaptation of Terry Southern's satiric sex farce (the sort of project that could get an immediate green light in the late 1960's and at practically no other time before or since), Ewa Aulin is Candy, a sweet young woman who doesn't seem entirely aware of the powerful sexual desire she brings out in men. While her father (John Astin) and mother (Elsa Martinelli) try to keep Candy in line, the task proves to be all but impossible, as she's seduced by a remarkable variety of men in her journeys, including a booze-addled poet (Richard Burton), a mystical guru who lives on a truck (Marlon Brando), a gardener from Mexico (Ringo Starr), a fanatical military man who refuses to leave his plane (Walter Matthau), a pair of uncomfortably high-strung doctors (John Huston and James Coburn) and even her own uncle (Astin, again). The Byrds and Steppenwolf contributed songs to the soundtrack; the screenplay was written by Buck Henry. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, (more)
The Owl and the Pussycat began life as a two-character Broadway play by Bill Manhoff, about a stuffy author who entered into an explosive relationship with his neighbor, a foulmouthed, freewheeling prostitute. Manhoff wrote the part of the hooker for a black actress, but all that changed when Barbra Streisand was cast in the role for the film version. George Segal portrays the male lead, and the play's two-character austerity was expanded to a cast of 19 speaking parts. Beyond the added characters (including Robert Klein as Segal's swinging roommate), the heart and soul of the film is the Segal-Streisand relationship; he is utterly appalled by her lifestyle, she is turned off by his prudishness, and both are made for each other. The Owl and the Pussycat was adapted for the screen by Buck Henry, who shows up in a cameo role in one of the bookstore scenes. The film represented the last work of cinematographer Harry Stradling, who'd previously photographed Streisand in Funny Girl; Stradling died during production, and was replaced by Ernest Laszlo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, George Segal, (more)
Director Mike Nichols and writer-actor Buck Henry followed their enormous hit The Graduate (1967) with this timely adaptation of Joseph Heller's satiric antiwar novel. Haunted by the death of a young gunner, all-too-sane Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants out of the rest of his WW II bombing missions, but publicity-obsessed commander Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam) and his yes man, Colonel Korn (Henry), keep raising the number of missions that Yossarian and his comrades are required to fly. After Doc Daneeka (Jack Gilford) tells Yossarian that he cannot declare him insane if Yossarian knows that it's insane to keep flying, Yossarian tries to play crazy by, among other things, showing up nude in front of despotic General Dreedle (Orson Welles). As all of Yossarian's initially even-keeled friends, such as Nately (Art Garfunkel) and Dobbs (Martin Sheen), genuinely lose their heads, and the troop's supplies are bartered away for profit by the ultra-entrepreneurial Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight), Yossarian realizes that the whole system has lost it, and he can either play along or jump ship. Though not about Vietnam, Catch-22's ludicrous military machinations directly evoked its contemporary context in the Vietnam era. Cathcart and Dreedle care more about the appearance of power than about victory, and Milo cares for money above all, as the complex narrative structure of Yossarian's flashbacks renders the escalating events appropriately surreal. Confident that the combination of a hot director and a popular, culturally relevant novel would spell blockbuster, Paramount spent a great deal of money on Catch-22, but it wound up getting trumped by another 1970 antiwar farce: Robert Altman's MASH. With audiences opting for Altman's casual Korean War iconoclasm over Nichols' more polished symbolism, the highly anticipated Catch-22 flopped, although the New York Film Critics Circle did acknowledge Arkin and Nichols. Despite this reception, Catch-22's ensemble cast and pungent sensibility effectively underline the insanity of war, Vietnam and otherwise. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, (more)
- 1971
- R
Czech filmmaker Milos Forman's first American production stars Linnea Heacock as Jeannie Tyne, a runaway teenager. While she wanders aimlessly around New York, her suburban parents, Lynn (Lynn Carlin) and Larry (Buck Henry), desperately search for their "missing" daughter. Larry and his best friend, Tony (Tony Harvey), inaugurate a search, but their expedition is sidetracked by a drinking binge at a local bar. Meanwhile, Lynn and Tony's wife, Margot (Georgia Engel), begin discussing their sex lives. Jeannie does finally return home, to constant questioning by her parents about which drugs she has taken; later, after Lynn and Larry join a support group for the parents of runaway children, they turn around and get stoned on marijuana themselves during one of the group meetings, then lapse into a randy game of strip poker -- little realizing that their daughter is close at hand and within earshot. As a critically revered lampoon of late-'60s sensibilities, Taking Off is full of "unknown" Manhattan-based performers who became famous during the '70s and '80s, including Paul Benedict, Vincent Schiavelli, Allen Garfield, Audra Lindley, and, in fleeting roles as auditioning singers, Carly Simon, who performs "Long Time Physical Effects," and Kathy Bates (billed as Bobo Bates), who performs "Even the Horses Had Wings." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lynn Carlin, Buck Henry, (more)
Alan Abel, best known as a purveyor of hoaxes, codirected this porno movie spoof with his wife Jeanne. Alan also stars as an itinerant sex specialist who travels around asking just-folks opinions about the possibility of post-mortem cohabitation. Among the guest stars are satirist Buck Henry and Marshall Efron (The Great American Dream Machine) as a dirty-movie director. Others in the cast are famed transvestite Holly Woodlawn and onetime Mad Magazine writer Earle Doud. Is There Sex After Death? originally earned an "X" rating, but has been pared down to a hard "R" for videotape release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
With Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938) as his blueprint, Peter Bogdanovich resurrected and payed homage to 1930s screwball comedy in What's Up, Doc? (1972). When wacky co-ed Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand, in the Katharine Hepburn part) spies nebbishy musicologist Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal in bespectacled Cary Grant mode) in a San Francisco hotel lobby, she decides that Howard and his precious igneous rocks are right up her alley. Too bad Howard already has a fiancée, the propriety-fixated Eunice (Madeline Kahn in her film debut). Using all her arcane knowledge from brief stays at numerous colleges, Judy tries to charm her way to a $20,000 grant for Howard, and Howard himself, at a banquet with grantor Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton). Things get even more complicated the next day when Judy's underwear-filled overnight bag gets mixed up with Howard's rock bag, which gets mixed up with Mrs. Van Hoskins' bag of jewels, which gets mixed up with Mr. Smith's bag of top secret government papers. All sides converge at Larrabee's mod townhouse and the chase begins. Retaining Hawks' machine-gun pace (as well as the sly pop culture referentiality of Billy Wilder), Bogdanovich and writers Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton updated the opposites-attract screwball convention for contemporary times. O'Neal gently parodied not only Grant but also his own Love Story (1970) preppy, while Kahn represents stiff-wigged 1950s manners as opposed to Streisand's long-haired, pants-wearing free spirit. The happy ending, in which Cole Porter-belting youth wins out over old manners, found favor with audiences, as What's Up, Doc? became one of the most popular films of 1972, and the second hit in a row for Bogdanovich after 1971's The Last Picture Show. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, (more)
Director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry team up again (after collaborating on The Graduate and Catch-22) for this adaptation of Robert Merle's best-selling adventure novel concerning dolphins who become pawns in a plot to kill the president. George C. Scott plays Dr. Jake Terrell, a researcher who, along with his wife Maggie (Trish Van Devere), is investigating dolphin intelligence, believing they have the capability of speech. Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver), in charge of a major corporation, sponsors their work. But undercover work by government agent Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino) reveals that DeMilo is working with a right-wing group planning to kidnap the dolphins and use them to blow up the presidential yacht. Jake and Maggie have to race against time to save both their dolphins and the president. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Trish VanDevere, (more)
- 1976
This 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest Gordon Lightfoot. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, Gordon Lightfoot, (more)
- 1976
This 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guests Bill Withers and Toni Basil. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, Bill Withers, (more)
- 1976
This 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest the Band. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, The Band, (more)
Based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth achieved cult film status for David Bowie's performance as Thomas Jerome Newton, aka "Mr. Sussex," and the imagery of director Nicholas Roeg, a former cinematographer. In this deeply allegorical science-fiction drama, Newton is an alien from a planet that is dying for lack of water, and he has been sent to earth to find a way to ship some of the earth's plentiful supply to his home planet. He arrives with a human-looking disguise, his knowledge of unusual technologies, his despair, and little else. Using his knowledge, he takes out patents on "his" inventions, aided by patent lawyer Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry). He skillfully parlays the money from these inventions and becomes a financial/industrial tycoon. These inventions, and others like them, along with his political and financial power, should make possible the transfer of water to his planet. But instead of pressing forward with plans to save his home planet, he becomes enamored of Earth's low-down ways and of his strange, passive relationship with his elevator-operator girlfriend, Mary Lou (Candy Clark). Meanwhile, his phenomenal rise from anonymity to power, and his eccentric behavior, spark the government's interest. Chemistry professor Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn) also comes calling, fascinated by the alien's history. As gin and despair slowly cripple him, he becomes consumed by memories of life on his doomed planet. The longer (140 minutes) and sexier British version of this film was toned down for its American release. Roeg, whose work has received polarized responses, also directed such distinctively stylized movies as Walkabout (1971) and Don't Look Now (1973). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Bowie, Candy Clark, (more)
- 1977
This 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guests Kenny Vance and Jennifer Warnes. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, Kenny Vance, (more)
- 1977
This 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest Leon Redbone. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, Leon Redbone, (more)
- 1978
This 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest the Grateful Dead. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, The Grateful Dead, (more)
- 1978
This 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest Sun Ra. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, Sun Ra, (more)
Opting for light entertainment after the critical satire of Shampoo (1975), producer-director-writer-star Warren Beatty remade the 1941 comic fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Dimly amiable L.A. Rams quarterback Joe Pendleton (Beatty) is prematurely called to Heaven by an over-eager escort (Buck Henry, who co-directed) after a traffic accident. When archangel Mr. Jordan (James Mason) discovers the error, he offers to return Joe to his body, only to find that it has been cremated. On the verge of playing in the Super Bowl, Joe demands a fit body rather than the old about-to-be-murdered industrialist Farnsworth he has been offered, but he reconsiders when he sees environmentalist Betty Logan (Julie Christie) in Farnsworth's house. Assuming Farnsworth's body while keeping his sweet self, Joe hires his beloved coach Max Corkle (Jack Warden) to get him in shape (after convincing Max who he really is), sets Farnsworth's business on an eco-friendly path, and romances Betty. Farnsworth's homicidal wife (Dyan Cannon) and secretary (Charles Grodin), however, are still determined to succeed in their plan to kill him. When Mr. Jordan finally finds the Super Bowl body Joe wanted, Joe has to trade his old self for the new life -- but will he remember his love for Betty? Heaven Can Wait offered contemporary yet old-fashioned escapism and tapped into the late-1970s vogue for nostalgic fun, becoming one of 1978's most popular summer movies after Grease. Updating the original while following its blueprint, Beatty and co-writer Elaine May switched Joe's sport and turned Joe into a man of his '70s moment, adoring Betty for her convictions and favoring "green" policies over corporate greed. Gently breathing life into a classic form, Heaven Can Wait found romantic innocence in a jaded time, and it went on to receive nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, (more)
- 1979
Not to be confused with the 1986 TV miniseries of the same name, Strong Medicine is the bizarre tale of a bizarre young woman, played bizarrely by Kate Manheim. Shunted aside by society in general, she loses all touch with reality. It helps not at all that she comes in contact with several equally "lost" souls. For an avant-garde exercise, Strong Medicine has a remarkably high-profile cast; it also features Raul Julia and My Dinner With Andre's Wallace Shawn. Filmed in 1979, Strong Medicine lay on the shelf unreleased for nearly six years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Manheim
Noted screenwriter Joan Tewksbury made her directorial debut with this bittersweet comedy-drama. Diane Cruise (Talia Shire), a psychologist going through a severe depression, takes a long look at her life after attempting to commit suicide. Diane decides to pay a visit to her former boyfriends in order to get in touch with her past and map out her future. She meets up with her high school sweetheart Eric Katz (John Belushi) and gets to turn the tables on him in revenge over a past humiliation. She also finds Jeff Turrin (Richard Jordan), her college beau who now works as a filmmaker, and she discovers that the first boy she fell in love with has died -- only to find herself drifting into an unexpected romance with his older brother, Wayne Van Til (Keith Carradine). The supporting cast features John Houseman, Buck Henry, Gerritt Graham, and P.J. Soles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Talia Shire, Richard Jordan, (more)
- 1979
This 1979 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Buck Henry and features musical guest Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Henry, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, (more)
- 1979
Culled from a 1979 comedy concert, this sampling of the Wild and Crazy Guy at his wildest and craziest may be familiar to his older fans, but is well worth another go-round. "Happy Feet," "King Tut," the arrows and the bunny ears are all in attendance; by this time, Martin's catchphrase and stock routines were so familiar that audiences began laughing before they even occurred, sometimes shouting the lines in unison just as Martin opens his mouth. The video is rounded out with Martin's Oscar-nominated short subject, The Absent Minded Waiter. Steve Martin Live was directed by Carl Gottleib, an associate of Martin's since his days on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour writing staff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
