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The first "Billy Jack" film is a serious examination of rape and personal cowardice disguised as a biker/drug exploitation film. It manages to satisfy on both counts. No nudity, lots of outrageous clothing, and plenty of nazi bikers. Not quite as good as its sequel (which was written previously) but also not so preachy and talky. Dig the "nature carnage" at the film's beginning. Decent photography (marred in the DVD presentation by pan and scan process), but mid to low grade actors. Russell appears as a burnt-out, harried mom. Is she really acting? She's way over the top, but fun as always.

p.s. (2008, second viewing) p.s. the movie isn't going to appeal to everyone, but it's coming from a good place compared to a lot of exploitation films. There's a lot of classic Hollywood here, Tom Laughlin drawing on a lot of his roots. Like "Billy Jack" this movie is a very passionate statement against rape and it condemns society's attitude about rape. But because the victims are so beautiful, frankly the movie feels more exploitative and less serious than the more successful sequel. You could look on this movie as a learning experience for Laughlin, but it's a very interesting drive-in biker movie in and of itself, very different and more carefully put together than a lot of its brethren. For example this time around I noticed that the film can be seen as an anti-Western -- as opposed to the stereotypical concept of a white man rescuing the white virgins from the "indians", here we have an ostensibly Native American hero rescuing the white women from white bikers (bikes and jeeps standing in for horses and stagecoaches in the traditional Western iconography of course).

While most people are familiar with Tom Laughlin's half Native American/half Anglo cult figure Billy Jack through THE LEGEND OF BILLY JACK, many don't know that the character originally appeared in this flick, an off-kilter biker flick about a group of psycho cyclists who terrorize a small California town over Spring Break and zero in on a young college co-ed whom they raped and don't want to testify against them. No, the film isn't as good(or political)as the two sequels, but it does say something about the isolation of the individual in a society that won't stand up and protect that individual from harm. There's a profound sense of solitude in the cinematography of beaches and seaside highways and the sparse, often inarticulate dialog. And, looking closely at the motorcycle gang, you can see some none-too-subtle homosexual overtones. Of course, all the quick cuts and zoom shots earmark the film as a product of late sixties moviemaking. Still, if you want to catch a glimpse of Billy Jack's debut or like to study sixties film styles, take a look at this one

So on the evening on 5/11/15 across America much of the country's senior population settled in after dinner at 8/7PM to TCM to enjoy a movie. Perhaps a frothy Esther Williams vehicle, or a Gene Kelly musical or maybe some 1940's film noir with Alan Ladd. I can only imagine the reactions when they discovered their favorite movie channel was showing 2 hours of mayhem, featuring brutal violence and gang rapes as a motorcycle gang, "The Born Losers" terrorize a California town in this 1967 classic of the biker flick genre. No complaints here, I know they've shown this very late at night before, not sure if they've ran it in prime time but one thing I love about TCM is the variety in showing films rarely seen elsewhere.

AIP did a great job of gaging the pulse of the young film goers in the 50's through the early 70's. In the 50's they had rock n roll and juvenile delinquent movies, and in the early and middle 60's they had all the silly Frankie & Annette beach comedies. By 1967 they had ran their course and AIP went to edgier stuff, with biker and drug flicks, cheaply made stuff for drive-in's and a teenage audience. "Born Losers" is notable for the introduction of the Billy Jack character. The sequel, the pretentious and heavy handed "Billy Jack" received much more attention and was more successful and would spawn one more sequel, the truly dreadful "Trial of Billy Jack" which I must admit, I've never been able to sit through entirely.

However, the most compelling character in BL isn't Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack, but screen veteran Jeremy Slate as Danny Carmody, the leader of the biker gang. Slate actually brings a touch of humor (like wearing goofy white sunglasses that look like they were ripped off an old lady) to an otherwise repulsive thug and in my book does a superior of more believable job of playing a biker gang boss than Brando did in "The Wild One." Also notable is the great Jane Russell, in a small part as a washed out alcoholic mom of a girl who fell in the bikers. Now in her mid-40's, time hadn't been too kind to the gal who was a sex goddess in the 40's and 50's with a spectacular figure.

As with all AIP films, much of it is unintentionally hilarious and lousy. Fun to watch though and thinking about, maybe it's not a bad call for TCM to run it in prime time, considering the original target for this is now between 60 and 70.

This was bad. Dialogue was bad. Editing was bad. Acting was cornball. Directing was practically non-existent. The sound had to have been recorded with a hand-held cheap microphone. AND JANE RUSSELL???? Her scene was an embarrassment to her career. I can't inagine why she came out of semi-retirement to utterly trash whatever legacy she had. She was dressed up like she was going to the Oscars or a Presidential gala event. And her last on-camera shot was a make-up smeared face and maniacal laughter that was so......BAD!!! I sat through this garbage just to see at what point in time Billy Jack was going to kick butt as he did in his "Billy Jack" film. A couple of sporadic karate chops and then uses a rifle to perform a cold-blooded between-the-eyes shooting. A 60's era worthless biker exploitation......MOVIE??? NO, a waste of time.

First saw this in the late 80s on a vhs. Found the bike sequences cool then. Revisited it recently. This film introduced the character of Billy Jack, a half Indian n a special ops war veteran, who lives in a trailer near the hills among nature, fishing and bathing nude in the waterfalls. (Quite an environmental activist before anyone else I guess). A biker gang terrorize the nearby town, rape four teenage girls and threaten anyone slated to testify against them. Billy comes to the aid of one of the girls, Vicky, (Elizabeth James), a hot chick who rides a motorcycle while wearing a bikini. I wonder wher she disappeared? No information about her is available on Google or IMDb. The film does get a lil slow with all the unnecessary talky stuff, most of the acting is not up to the mark but overall this film is a must watch for the political n social theme. Of course, another reason is Billy Jack n his karate chops n the hottie Elizabeth.

Contrary to one reviewer's information, "Born Losers" was a smash at the box office the FIRST time it was released in '67. And it's easy to see why. It's the most entertaining of the "biker movie" genre, because it has a story and vivid characters. Elizabeth James is Vicky Barrington, a vacationing college student who comes up against a nasty motorcycle gang in a California mountain town. Naturally, the gang, headed by a weathered Jeremy Slate, take off after Vicky (who is on a motorcycle wearing white boots and a matching bikini) and two of them eventually catch and rape her. She's not the only victim. Three incredibly foolish local girls visit the gang's "clubhouse" and meet a similar fate. But they don't have a champion like Tom Laughlin (in his first appearance as Billy Jack) who manages to get Vicky out of danger (at least for a while) and subsequently falls in love with her. "Born Losers" has a great score by "Wild Angels" composer (and future Lieutenant Governor of California) Mike Curb, good acting by a large cast, and a fine cameo appearance by Jane Russell as the trashy mother of one of the victimized girls. Add some beautiful locations and some slick motorcycle stunts, and you have a "Born Winner!" Incidentally, beautiful Ms. James turned up as a police dispatcher in the seventies cult classic, "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry". She also wrote the screenplay for "Born Losers" (under the pen name 'E. James Lloyd').

I avoided the Billy Jack movies when they first came out but I was aware that they were popular and very successful financially. Having just watched Born Losers, I can only assume that everybody who saw it back then must have been stoned. I can't think of any redeeming factors, even considering the era in which it was made. The movie lurches from one cliched, poorly written, poorly directed and appallingly acted scene to the next. I've never seen so many continuity goofs in one movie! Jane Russell must have been in dire need of money to do a cameo in it. I guess it has cult movie status now i.e. It's so bad it's good. I'm tempted to look up the next Billy Jack movie to see if a bigger budget improved the quality.

My husband and I stumbled on this movie late one night on our tv. We decided to watch it because we liked the other 2 Billy Jack movies and were hoping we would like this one too -- we didn't! We actually stayed up till 2 am to watch it all the way to the end, hoping it would get better, because the tv guide gave it a 3-star rating. We thought the acting was awful, what little plot there was made no sense to us, we didn't care about the characters and we thought the dialog was pathetic. It wasn't even "so bad that it was funny" -- we just found it boring. Even though the acting wasn't all that much better in the other Billy Jack movies, they at least had cohesive plotlines with characters that we actually cared about (and one had a hit song, to boot!).

Given its low budget, this is not a bad movie. A motorcycle gang, led by the scruffy Jeremy Slate, terrorizes a small California town, and in the process rapes several college girls. There's lots of tough talk, motorcycle noise, and violence, as you would expect for a biker film.

Of course, to balance out all the villainous mayhem, you gotta have a hero on the scene. And for the era in which the film was made, there was no better hero than the charismatic loner, half-breed Billy Jack, played with serene gusto by Tom Laughlin. He's a one-man show of moral and physical strength, as he outwits and outfights the biker roughnecks. The film makes the point that bad parenting and ineptness in traditional law enforcement foster an environment conducive to delinquency.

Interestingly, although this is the first Billy Jack film, Laughlin played a similar role ten years earlier, in a movie called "The Delinquents" (1957). His character was Scotty, a good guy teenager who gets mixed up with a bunch of high school hoodlums. Whereas in "The Delinquents" all the villains are kids who drive around in jalopies, in "The Born Losers", the kids have grown into adults who ride motorcycles.

In "The Born Losers" the characters tend to be stereotypes. In a time period that immediately preceded the women's lib movement, the film's female characters are very, very subservient. The film's plot does depend on contrivances to some extent. Dialogue lacks subtext. Production design is ... colorful. And the costumes reek of late 60's garish "hip" (love those pink walls and pink clothes), all perfectly in sync with the Age of Aquarius. Tom Laughlin's direction is excellent. Color cinematography is very good. The outdoor scenery is wonderful, as is the music in the opening title sequence.

I've seen a number of biker films. "The Born Losers" is one of the best. It was highly successful at the box office, and led to later Billy Jack films. It has a cinematic style that is almost iconoclastic; not insignificantly, it preceded "Easy Rider" by a couple of years. Such was the impact of "The Born Losers".

"Billy Jack" (Tom Laughlin) is a former soldier who served with the Green Berets in Vietnam and has come back home to California to start a new life. Perhaps because of his Native American heritage he chooses to live in the woods away from everybody else. Unfortunately, things change when he gets into a fight with some members of a motorcycle gang known as "the Born Losers" and this changes things rather drastically for him. Similarly, "Vicky Barrington" (Elizabeth James) is on her way to meet her father when she also runs into this same motorcycle gang after which both she and Billy Jack realize that their lives are about to become closely intertwined. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that this was an enjoyable "biker film" which resulted in at least 3 "Billy Jack" sequels. Of particular interest is the fact that, regardless of his fighting prowess, he doesn't get off scot-free in many of his brawls and suffers consequences as a result. In any case, I enjoyed this movie for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

This is probably the least horrible (this isn't saying much) and first Billy Jack film. Instead of having Billy Jack defending his beloved hippie friends like he did in later films, a group of sadistic evil bikers invade a small town and Mr. Jack is the only one who can stop them. As a pacifist who turns maniac and dispenses justice to evil doers, this film is pretty watchable--despite its lousy production values and stilted acting. This isn't exactly a glowing review, but at least the film isn't terrible like the sequels. Its very similar to a lot of the biker films of the era, but perhaps a notch above them in watchability.

Note: It is pretty violent and full of rapes and sexual exploitation, so the kids should not watch.

Set in the southern California town of Big Rock, Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) is a half-white/half-Native American Green Beret and horse breaker living in seclusion in the surrounding mountains only occasionally venturing into town. When a minor traffic collision with the Born Losers Motorcycle Club lead by Daniel "Danny" Carmody (Jeremy Slate) leads to several members beating up a loud-mouthed motorist, Billy decides to intervene and attempts to stay the gang's sadistic ways, but when the police show up they levy a $1,000 fine against Billy for vigilantism which is significantly larger than the penalties placed on the gang who've all since been released. When several young women are subjected to brutal rape by the gang, the District Attorney attempts to build a case against them, but other members of the Born Losers terrorize the women out of testifying. One victim, Vicky Barrington (Elizabeth James) eventually crosses paths with Billy Jack with Billy taking it upon himself to defend her.

The Born Losers was the third film to be directed and star Tom Laughlin (under the pseudonym T. C. Frank) following Laughlin's two prior mostly forgotten dramas The Proper Time and The Young Sinner. Since the 1950s, Laughlin had been trying to produce a script about discrimination towards Native Americans, but after development on this stalled, Laughlin decided to introduce the character of Billy Jack (central to the movie Laughlin actually wanted to make) in a more commercial project inspired by the then popular genre of biker films and taking inspiration from an actual incident involving the Hell's Angels in Monterey, California. Laughlin produced the film independently and actually ran out of money during production, but upon showing the film to American International Pictures got the fund needed to finish the film. The film proved to be a decent success earning $2,225,000 against a $400,000 budget, and gave Laughlin the needed funding for 1971's Billy Jack. The Born Losers technically speaking isn't that far above many exploitation films, but with its iconic hero and some solidly loathsome villains it's certainly a cut above certain other vigilante flicks I could name.

While Born Losers certainly bares more than a few trademarks of the Samuel Z. Arkoff style of filmmaking including but not limited to a plethora of Bikini clad women and scenes that are done for cheap titillation in the exploitation mold, there is a lot more substance here than there needed to be. Elizabeth James who also plays Vicky Barrington wrote the screenplay and while lesser movies of this ilk would use the rape simply as an inciting incident to drive the male characters to revenge and render the women dead or catatonic so they're no longer of focus, James does actually take the time to look at the aftermath for rape victims from both a psychological and societal perspective with a lot of focus put on things such as victim blaming and shaming. The movie also gives us some depth to our villains The Born Losers including the familial connections between some of them such as MC president Danny and his younger brother Jerry who both came from an abusive home, but it doesn't use that as pathos or an excuse and is really there to make them feel slightly more tangible. Tom Laughlin is good as Billy Jack and while he's not quite the iconic Billy Jack from the follow-ups who'd sport the trademark black hat, Laughlin does have a charmingly simple relaxed masculine charisma as well as a more nuanced take on this character archetype who isn't so much motivated by revenge as he is a code. He doesn't look for trouble, but he also doesn't stand on the sidelines and let it happen.

The Born Losers is certainly an AIP picture through and through, but it's the fun kind of exploitation that still has more on its mind comparatively speaking to stuff like the Beach Party and bikini films of AIP. You can probably find any number of faults with a movie like this, but in comparison to stuff like Death Wish or Walking Tall it has a less fascistic and brutal take on the world than those films or their imitators.

I saw this movie on TCM cult movie Friday nights just last Weekend. I am beyond mystified why anyone would regard this pompous horse dung of a movie and character as quality film making...Yet, there it is. Tom Laughlin is easily the most arrogant , high and mighty excuse for an actor who has ever walked the earth. The acting in this movie , and every other Billy Jack movie is sooooo amateur, no, that is too kind a word....It's not even acting. You would get substantially better acting in your average Junior High School play.

All this said, I nearly broke a rib laughing while viewing "Born Losers" so as high camp uber trash it performs brilliantly. I wanted to find a copy of the Billy Jack collection just so I could make some tape loops but the average price of 29$ I saw on Amazon and Ebay was about 28 $ too much....Anybody that likes these movies on a serious level is insane, and , apparently, a lot of people like these movies, thus we live in an insane world......

For some reason, I remember this as being the target of jokes and sneers when it was new.

Making sure to avoid prejudice, wanting to see it myself and know for sure, I recorded it when it premiered on Turner Classic Movies so I could watch in the right mood.

What a pleasant surprise it turned out to be.

To the best of my weakening memory, I don't believe I've ever seen Tom Laughlin and now I wonder why.

First, he was a really good-looking guy, and he was a very pleasant personality on screen. He should have become a major player.

Elizabeth James might not have been the best actress around in the '60s and '70s, but my gosh was she a looker. She had a fit, athletic presence, and just glowed on the screen, and she should also have been a major player.

And why isn't there more information about her? She seems a fascinating person.

Not such a surprise, but really deserving prominent mention, was Jane Russell's performance.

She has not been treated with the respect I think she deserves, having not completely recovered from the "wouldn't you like to tussle with Russell?" PR nonsense from her first movie, "The Outlaw." But she was, frankly, great in this small part. Actually, she had been turning in great performances for a long time, and she has been great because she made the effort to become an actress, and not just coast on her looks.

Jeremy Slate was so good in his villainous role, his character was almost admirable, almost likable. The man is a standout in any movie he is in. He's been gone a little more than two years now, and he left a void.

Let's be honest: The script could have used a good editor. There were some hokey moments that could have been fixed with just a little effort before production.

But all in all, this is a good movie, within the context of what it tried to do and be.

Now I look forward to seeing the other "Billy Jack" movies.

If you have not yet seen this movie, I recommend you do so at least once to get a sense of the 1960's.

The movie came out when I was 9 years old, and I first saw it as a teenager in 1977. Recently I saw it again as a 60+ year old.

As a teenager, I thought it was COOL with the motorcycles, chicks, and violence. As a 62 year old I thought it was a cheaply made, sexist, and had needless violence - yet it still held my interest.

If it comes on TCM or similar channel, have a few drinks and watch!!!

Tom Laughlin's 1967 film The Born Losers is not what it appears to be; good-guy defeats out-law biker gang and saves young rape victims. On the contrary, Born Losers is Laughlin's take on the war in Viet-Nam and the effects it had on "normal" middle-America.

The motorcycle gang in the film is a symbol of military forces who take-over a town (representing Viet-Nam) and go on a brutal spree of violence and rape. What causes these seemingly normal men to act in such brutal manners? Are there goods guys and bad guys? No, just people caught up in a "cruel" world of hopelessness, acting out their most primal instincts. Laughlin makes sure not to fit his characters into "good" and "evil", but incorporate a little of both in each person. Laughlin's character fights fire with fire, and it seems to say that there are no-rules in war. Controversial to say the least. The movie bombed at the box-office when first released in 1967. After the amazing success of Billy Jack, it was re-released and showed a pretty-profit.

A strong supporting cast of "B" movie legends-Elizabeth James, Jerome Slate, Robert Tessier, Jack Starrett along with a "faded" Jane Russell, make Born Losers one of the more outstanding independent movies of the 1960s.

Born Losers is a Born Winner.

Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) is an ex-Green Beret back home after Vietnam. There is a motorcycle gang 'Born to Lose' who are terrifying a small California coastal town. The gang is led by Danny Carmody and his second-in-command Child. Only Billy Jack is willing to stand up to them as they call him an Indian. He's sentenced and fined for vigilantism which is more than even the gang members. College student Vicky Barrington (Elizabeth James) in her white bikini riding a motorcycle attracts the attention of the gang. She gets raped along 3 other girls. The girls are pressured out of testifying except for Vicky. Billy Jack's friend Crawford has a daughter that is one of those girls. The gang kidnaps Vicky from Deputy Fred and then she's rescued by Billy Jack.

The acting is generally bad in this movie. The gang is rough at times and then at other times, they're doing a version of West Side Story. Elizabeth James is a bad actress but she's great at wearing that white bikini. On the other hand, her character is well written. She's able to write a character that isn't simply a damsel in distress and also not a simple heroine either. She's a smart mouth and a coward in her own words. Also watch out for a Jane Russell cameo. Even though this is a badly made and badly acted movie, I still root for these characters. I think there is the bare bones of a good movie inside of here.

Thanks to TCM I was on a bit of a Billy Jack kick this weekend. Billy Jack was a movie which came out in 1971 starring Tom Laughlin who played an ex-military, Native American pacifist who used his feet (he was a martial artist) to right the wrongs imposed by the status quo. I knew there were some sequels but what I didn't know was a prequel was made where his character was shoehorned into a 'bikers laying siege on a town' saga. Playing as a curio of the times (this came out in 1967, a year before Easy Rider) the anti-establishment was still finding its footing & having a peace loving, ass kicking Indian as a nominal spokesman would be something of a head scratcher to be sure. Being his first outing as star, co-writer (his wife also did writing duties) & director, some things had to give & Billy Jack as a character seemed out of place or would just pop in out of nowhere ran contrary to the forward movement of the biker gang's onslaught & mayhem. Jack would fare better in the follow-ups (I'll get to them shortly) but here he stuck out like a sore thumb or is that a smashed kneecap?