Violence

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.

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".

Loner Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin), just returned from Viet Nam, pits himself against a vicious motorcycle gang who are terrorizing a California town, protecting a rape victim and standing alone when even the police are reluctant to act.

This is one of the best of its kind. Made on a shoestring budget the tight storyline allows for few frills but plenty of classic hero and villain tension. In-your-face violence for its time, only a little martial-arts action (compared to the later BJ films) but all the ingredients are on hand for a character who is destined to become an American screen icon.

The nattering nabobs can kavetch about bad acting until their faces turn blue---Billy Jack is what he is, and Laughlin plays him to perfection. Particular credit goes to veteran actor Jeremy Slate as the complicated, arrogant gang leader, and again to Laughlin, for writing the part. Laughlin's villains have an element of sympathy. They may be monsters, but they have reasons for the way they behave and this makes them more human.

Look for an early walk-on by Laughlin's wife and later screen partner Delores Taylor (also his executive producer and co-writer)and their son and daughter (she would have a substantial role in following BJ flicks).

Also on hand is one of our favorite heavies, Robert Tessier as CueBall, sporting thick dark hair before he adopted his well-known shaved-head look. Tessier, a military vet and stunt man, was also the stunt adviser for the film.

Classic hero defending his girl against despicable bad guys makes for ONE TERRIFIC MOVIE. If you like this one check out BILLY JACK and DEFIANCE (Jan-Michael Vincent).

If you like Billy Jack, this is for you. Over 2 hours of a leading actress that can't act, a leading man who stands still without expression, and an inane group of men who are supposed to be dangerous because they are slightly bizarre. Sprinkle in ten minutes of Billy kicking big donkey, and you have the formula.

Tom Laughlin knew a winner when he saw one and would use the main elements of this film in all of his future Billy Jack movies. In later films, his real-life wife would take over the role of the leading actress that can't act.

This is a very low-budget movie. Future Billy Jack against the world movies had a couple more bucks. But true to form, as in all Billy Jack movies, there is no competent acting anywhere.

Personally, none of this stuff turns me off of Billy Jack movies. In one movie, I see it for the gas station scene. In another, I want to see Billy put his right foot up against the guy's left ear. In a third, I want to see him shoot it out.

For an anti-war pinko, Laughlin sure knows how to create some nice fight scenes. If the man would have moved a few more times per pic, he would have been a major star. But his style is to stand around for most of the movie with a deadpan expression, and then finally kick some butt.

The Billy Jack movies are a lot like chitlins, limburger cheese, or kim chee. If you like that stuff, you don't mind the smell.

This one stinks to high heaven.

But it's a Billy Jack stink.

This movie is interesting on many levels. Although it contains a few shocking scenes (if viewed unedited) it still comes across as kind of campy. When a girl on a motorcycle p***es off a motorcycle gang the fun begins. First of all, the girl on the cute little scooter type motorcyle looks like she just finished a gig on the "Hullabaloo" TV show complete with her matching go-go boots and bikini. She is kinda cute except she has a haircut that looks like they put a bowl on her head and cut around it. (She could have at least wore a "Bob's Big Boy Cascade" to sex it up a bit). She mouths off to the group of scumbags who all look like rejects from the Manson Family.

One shocking scene for 1967 is the part where two gang members french kiss (they are both men)! This is to illustrate the free-sex attitude of the era and supposedly (I am guessing here) to show what a bunch of degenerates these guys are.

Jane Russell is over the top here as a drunken, floozy mother of a teenage trollop who does a strip tease in her trailer park that has to be seen to be believed. The look on her face while stripping is somewhere between orgasmic and root canal. RENT THIS AND HAVE FUN!