The Trial of Billy Jack.

Review #2148: The Trial of Billy Jack.

Cast: 

Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack), Delores Taylor (Jean Roberts), Victor Izay (Doc), Teresa Kelly (Carol), Sara Lane (Russell), Geo Anne Sosa (Joanne), Lynn Baker (Lynn), Riley Hill (Posner), Sparky Watt (Sheriff Cole), Gus Greymountain (Blue Elk), Sacheen Littlefeather (Patsy Littlejohn), Michael Bolland (Danny), Jack Stanley (Grandfather), Bong-Soo Han (Master Han), Rolling Thunder (Thunder Mountain), and William Wellman Jr (National Guardsman) Directed by Tom Laughlin (#1196 - Billy Jack and #1860 - The Born Losers)

Review: 

"I got too preachy. Got too inflated with my own opinions and my own ideas and put 'em out too heavy." - Tom Laughlin

Okay, you remember The Born Losers (1967). That was the film that Tom Laughlin made with American International Pictures in that attempt to crack into making some of what he wanted to do with the character of his own creation in "Billy Jack", the ex-Green Beret with a bit of Native American heritage that deals with people who don't care for his way of thinking with a few kicks. The self-described "Stanislavsky actor" had spent time running his own Montessori preschool with his wife Delores before the second return to film (remember that he had done a few little-known film appearances and two features). AIP stepped in when Laughlin's slap-dash production made for under $500,000 ran out of money in post, promoted it as one of those biker exploitation films and made a reasonable hit. Of course, when it came time for another film, Billy Jack (1971) was aimed for a true approach by Laughlin at the plight of Natives that he saw mistreated in the 1950s in Winner, South Dakota. Oh, and something about freedom schools and maybe a bit of hapkido and uh, having a scene involving the co-star of the film (played by the wife of the director/star) is raped. No, really. The distribution was taken over by Laughlin in basically a game of hot potato when AIP rejected distributing the film; the result of Laughlin booking it himself in theaters was a rocket hit (Warner Bros. had done their ownattempts, but regardless, Laughlin had his winner), The film and Laughlin's performance had a modern successor with Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt, who used it as an influence in the development of the character of Cliff Booth in what became Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). The sequel of Billy Jack, directed by Laughlin with a script by Laughlin and Taylor (who for whatever reason used pseudonyms) would have its own brand of wall-to-wall nationwide pushing to its own type of notability, because there just weren't that many movies that could say they were in 1,000 screens at the same time. Prior films with a certain type of push in "wide release" was stuff like Duel in the Sun (1946), which apparently did a "blitz" of releasing simultaneously in a number of theaters in an area, while The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) opened in over 1,000 theaters within the first week of release. Anyway, Laughlin would have two more films in his directing arsenal: The Master Gunfighter (1975), which he also starred and produced with the belief that his nationwide strategy would work well again...it failed. Oh, and Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977), a film that couldn't even get a proper theatrical release even when Laughlin cut forty (!) minutes it to make run under three hours. Filming was done around Arizona and Utah, whether that involved Coronado National Forest or Monument Valley. It was reported after the release of the film that Laughlin, miffed by hearing critical reviews of his film, started a critics cash prize contest that invited the public to tell the critics how they really felt when it comes to being "out of touch". I especially like the part where he highlights some of the highest grossing films made to that point (read: 1974) and implicates that the critic somehow hated those big box office hits such as Gone with the Wind and The Sting. Truly, we are dealing with an actor/director/writer who is really not mad, no, really, he's not mad at the paper saying his film may be a tad, well...

Oh hell, let's get this out of the way quick: this is a steaming piece of bleeding-heart crap. My views don't matter that much when it comes for film a good chunk of the time, but even a guy like me rolls eyes at stuff like this. If you thought the last film was a meandering mess that refused to simply play ball with the hapkido first and stop playing the card of trying to being socially relevant with characters as likable as a rake in the head, wait until you get to this one. If you want a test of how long 173 minutes can feel, here is your chance with a movie that meanders so much in its elements of the Freedom School that you swear time will have stopped. I actually wonder if the biggest influence on Neil Breen and his meandering qualities of filmmaking and self-savior character (complete with being in his forties when doing them) movies is really Laughlin. That martyr stuff worked with the earlier film, but it comes to the most crashing of stops with a movie that continues all of the contradictions from before but with even less to offer here. Born Losers may have been a bit unpolished, but at least it felt like a film attempting to do entertainment. This is a movie that tries to go spread eagle in social news bulletins that go from mentioning the Kent State shootings to the My Lai massacre while being presented mostly in flashback form (because hey, being told the death and injury count on a massacre that has yet to be shown is part of The Laughlin Way, right next to having characters speak in platitudes). Taylor is left to hold the parts of the film that can't be bothered by Laughlin, who at one point is shown in full body color paint...of red, and also one time is spent in blue. The less said about Hill being the little covered villain (kick throat is kinda cool though), the better. Taylor's withering monotone voice of "reason" (I use quotes because it is debatable that reason exists in this film) is as weird as it was before when it comes to middling interest. Laughlin talks the same platitudes as before, and I would like to point out that he really thought of this character as a hero for the youth alongside Ralph Nader despite the fact that Billy Jack just meanders around with the same dilemma again and again about violence. The damn hapkido parts are the drawing force when it really boils down to what made those last two films even remotely tolerable as "average, not good", not the Jungian pop psychology. He may believe the stuff he is spewing (as quoted by him when it came to saying in interviews that no, no, no, the public really did go for the pacifism and not the kicking), but that is not a point in his favor when I find it tedious. The villains in the movie are no more complex than what you would find in a Saturday morning cartoon, but because the film wants to be taken so seriously, it comes off as hilarious to be subjected to such tedious slop. Even seeing the students get into the idea of fighting brute savagery with, uh, bombing, is more interesting than vision quests or kids that eventually bring themselves to play guitar.

You know that old stereotype of hippies being, well, annoying? This is basically red meat for jokes in that regard. You can say the film has a worthy look to it when it comes to production value, but all I see is a waste of space. Being the drunk uncle of Gas-s-s-s (1970) is not a compliment, especially when you find that there were *five* editors credited for this film. I can't even fathom the time it took to edit those sequences of vision quests. I think there is a sort of amusing irony that a film that features a white guy playing a character with mixed Native heritage happens to have appearances by Sacheen Littlefeather and Rolling Thunder, two people with dubious claims of Native American ancestry (Littlefeather is so much a fraud that it was her sisters that said how much of a fraud she was). The movie actually has the balls to show an ending title card of notes addressing the idea the film may be "too violent" and to, uh, "give peace a chance...". In the end, this is a sermon that preaches to the choir for all of the cliches in the world that won't win any new curious viewers, particularly for those without the stomach for movie-made massacre of children. This is a film that fails the basic rule of clarity and "action" and only stands as a testament to what one could do in the 1970s when it came to vision and distribution. The 2020s has its own methods of getting films to somewhere in time, but nothing may be as deluded as this film when it comes to tenacity, for better or worse. It seems perfect for the turkey celebrations: it has Native Americans (real and the dubious), a long boring lesson from white folks, and it feels like it takes all day to end.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Next: After a fresh offering of Thanksgiving slop, enjoy your Black Friday with Baby Geniuses.

The Delinquents (1957).

Review #1890: The Delinquents.

Cast: 

Tom Laughlin (Scotty White), Peter Miller (Bill Cholly), Richard Bakalyan (Eddy), Rosemary Howard (Janice Wilson), Leonard Belove (Mr. White), Helen Hawley (Mrs. White), James Lantz (Mr. Wilson), Lotus Corelli (Mrs. Wilson), and Christine Altman (Sissy Wilson) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville and #1433 - M*A*S*H)

Review: 

"The danger of writing a script is that everybody has the same voice. I think when they don’t have the same voice it makes the film better. So when you have five different sources in there, five different voices, it seems closer to reality. I’m trying to push the actor into becoming a real creator—creating that part. Bringing things to it that the writer and/or myself couldn’t bring."

Here we have a couple of firsts. This was the first feature film in work of Robert Altman. The Kansas City native returned from service in the Thirteenth Air Force with the interest of writing, but his minimal success in that field (one film script got sold) had him move back, and his next assignment was with the Calvin Company, an advertising, educational, and industrial film production company. He directed many industrial shorts for the company before he got his first foray beyond that with television in the early 1950s. This was the first starring role for Tom Laughlin. Yes, before he got into the act of trying to write and direct his own films, Laughlin was an actor, starting in 1955 with a handful of television appearances and one film to his name before this feature. If you can believe it, Laughlin and Altman did not get along during production, mostly because of the way that Laughlin wanted to do the film (Laughlin described himself as a "Stanislavsky actor", not a Method actor), complete with actually preparing for a tired moment by running laps, and Altman later called him a "pain in the ass" while finding the best way to settle things: he simply told Laughlin what he wanted in a certain scene; for his part, Laughlin described the film as "very amateurish" along with expressing a dislike of Altman's lack of organization, and at one point he started rolling the cameras to shoot a scene rather than wait for Altman to arrive (because he felt guilty given whose money it was). Tying this all together is the debut production of Elmer Rhoden Jr, a Kansas City-born exhibitor of films that was president of a theater chain that encompassed six states. Wanting to tap into the teen market in an era where there was plenty to go around from rock and roll to hot rod features, Rhoden Jr made his first effort into producing, complete with using the theater chain as a way to get his film regional success. With a budget of roughly $63,000, he recruited Altman, who would write along with recruit the people required for said production in terms of casting and location picking, complete with recruiting people from his industrial films and a mix of California talent (including cooperation from the Kansas City Police Department) to go alongside Altman's wife at the time (Corelli, who divorced him when he began having Hawley as his mistress) and Altman's daughter as actors in the film. Rhoden would make two further features as a producer before he died in 1959, dying a couple of months after suffering a heart attack (owing to his alcoholism) at the age of 37.

Admittedly, if you did not know that Altman was the director or that Laughlin was the star, you might not be inclined to pick it out among the oodles of delinquent films. But the film is a decent one in the ways that matter most from folks making their first attempt at breaking into features, regardless of how they thought of the other. Laughlin would get his chances to act and direct by 1960 while Altman would get to direct on a regular basis in television before he got his next chance to direct in features again with Countdown (1967) before hitting the big time in the 1970s. The Delinquents isn't exactly anything special, but it was a modest success that did all the things one might see from seeing people (not quite teenagers but not quite just 30-year olds) try to play juveniles and do the mildest form of "bad things" (you see a mildly involving switchblade fight to go with robbery hijinks and partying). You can see the idea of Altman wanting to have loose and free dialogue go with his favoring of trying to not go through all of the Hollywood channels. One can see the seeds of the observer of chaos even in a movie that Altman might have been only loosely fine with in the long run. He got to make a movie on his terms but saw it changed with voiceovers to start and end the movie that present it as a tale of violence and immorality...that sees delinquency as a disease that could be treated with either more attention from parents or youth groups. I think Altman just wanted to make a movie where teens just go around on a cruise about town without an easy endgame, and in that sense, it is a neat little movie, efficient in 72 minutes in going where it wants without seeming stifled by boredom. The parental figures present their cases of thinking they know what is best for their kids in this age (which isn't like when they were kids, obviously). Laughlin may have the screen presence of a rock tumbling down a well, but it is a graceful presence that handles what is required in someone trapped in expectations on all sides without becoming just a Method punching bag while Howard maneuvers panic with mild success. Bakalyan and Miller won't exactly set a new presence as "hoods of tomorrow" like the poster might say, but they are capable threats that you would expect from a film like this that keeps things firmly on the level. As a whole, things come, things go, but some things are forever, whether that involves actors or directors getting their first true chance to make an impression mean something. Regardless of how the experience went, The Delinquents is a solid feature for its headliners that makes quite the curiosity for those who wish to seek it out as an average but fascinating piece of chaos.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Born Losers.

Review #1860: The Born Losers.

Cast: 

Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack), Elizabeth James (Vicky Barrington), Jeremy Slate (Daniel 'Danny' Carmody), William Wellman Jr. (Child), Jack Starrett (Deputy Fred), Robert Cleaves (Mr. Crawford), Paul Bruce (District Attorney George Davis), Robert Tessier (Cueball), Paul Prokop (Speechless), Jeff Cooper (Gangrene), Stuart Lancaster (Sheriff Harvey), Anne Bellamy (Mrs. Prang), with Ruth Warshawsky (Nurse) and special guest star Jane Russell (Mrs. Shorn) Directed by Tom Laughlin (#1196 - Billy Jack)

Review: 

First, one needs a few facts. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Tom Laughlin was actually into football first, even playing two positions at Marquette University; seeing a production of A Streetcar Named Desire pushed a desire to act, and he transferred to the University of South Dakota to major in acting. It was in the summer of 1967 that Tom Laughlin got his first crack to do a movie with the character of Billy Jack, which he first thought of in 1954 after seeing the mistreatment of Native Americans in the hometown of his wife Delores Taylor. Over the next couple of years, he would do a handful of performances on television and film, which included his first starring role in The Delinquents (1958). He got his first chances to direct with The Proper Time (1960) and Like Father, Like Son (1961) that saw him write and produce along with star, but neither were particularly successful. Laughlin left the film business for five years to dedicate all of his time to the Montessori preschool that he and his wife had established in 1959 in Santa Monica, California. The school, which had received national publicity from the press, closed in 1965 due to bankruptcy. Perhaps not surprisingly, he returned to film. Laughlin intended to fully produce the movie alongside directing and acting as well. However, he ran out of money in post-production, so he had to see if he could get some funding from who else- American International Pictures, masters of the exploitation circuit. Given the fact that Laughlin decided to hone right into the boom of the biker movie that had been seen with schlock such as The Wild Angels (1966), it fit right in for AIP to fund and release. The movie was shot in three weeks for roughly $160,000, complete with using rented houses and a real motorcycle gang in The Devil's Disciples. AIP intended to distribute Billy Jack (1971), but the studio refused after seeing the final cut, which led to Laughlin making a deal with Warner Brothers (after 20th Century Fox made a deal and reneged on Laughlin). That release did not succeed well, but Laughlin's decision to sue the studio and re-release it himself two years later did work well for him to the point where AIP did a re-release of The Born Losers and riled Laughlin up by having ads that called it the original Billy Jack. 

Remember Broken Arrow (1950)? You know, the movie that tried to feature a balanced story involving Native Americans and someone on the frontier that seemed different from the "Cowboys and Indians" type of Western? In a sense, Laughlin is making a Western with this movie, but the idea that his self-described half Native American who is also an ex-Green Beret is anything special when compared to previous movies is just as silly as it would be for the following feature. This one also took inspiration from real-life events, as it was based on an incident from 1964 where members of the Hells Angels were arrested for raping two teenage girls in Monterey, California. This results in a movie that shows the fuzzy contradiction that encapsulates Laughlin as a director within the character he created: he can make a decent action scene with its setup, but the values that come with his bully pulpit make for moments that are amusing to laugh at rather than actually engage with at face value. In trying to teach some sort of weird pacifism in the face of violence, one simply brushes the anti-establishment stuff with a yawn and a chuckle - to say nothing of the scenes where victims are depicted as actually enjoying their encounters with the bikers because of how their parents raised them. This was the only starring role for James, who actually shows the semblance of "charm" and "engagement with the material", one who surely deserved better things than being in a bikini and having to share time with mono-Laughlin. Slate actually makes a quality villain in the exploitation angle for weird crass influences, even if the presentation of him with his family muddles things a bit (when I think about exploitation movies with bad guys, I don't think if they have kids); one just needs weirdos that love James Dean but dress up with Nazi stuff to raise hell. Russell is there to chew scenery for tears that Laughlin uses to about what you would expect for a movie that dares to have a guest star.

Seeing the 1967 Billy Jack before the 1971 sequel is a hell of a trip, if only because the earlier film is somehow a better movie in execution despite being made to cash in on the exploitation craze as opposed to the weirdo movie that was done later (of course, if you saw the 1967 movie second, the whole argument about quality is even more pronounced); in short, the B-movie is better than the passion project. The exploitation angle is far more interesting to consider than seeing Laughlin in a setup that makes him look like he robbed Marlon Brando but forgot to get the talent factor; you could probably do an entire dub of the movie and have the same amount of charisma as Laughlin (while also making up a whole new background to explain the lily-white weirdo who is our lead). He does better in the action sequence in part because that involves him not having to come up with the attempt of empathy or timing. For a movie at 113 minutes, he also managed to make a movie that is way too damn long, as it lags in the second half (there's a sequence where an astrologer asks them about their birthdays!) before limping to a siege climax that only barely delivers the actual reason to watch - exploitation! Urgency is what is needed, not shots of dead animals. If Laughlin wants to play cowboy-sorry, weird pacifist/asskicker, the best thing one could have done with the character is to take the script from him and have a real discussion over what the hell he wanted to do that wasn't just fanfiction of himself (case in point: shooting the villain between the eyes in one shot). In other words: subtle measures of staging a message within action works way better than throwing everything together and hoping it sticks for some moral revolution bullshit that might actually make an argument for studio system films. In the end, Laughlin may have been a maverick film director who did what he could to get his point across in filmmaking, but it doesn't mean that his failures should be outweighed by his intentions, which is the case with a mediocre movie in the case of The Born Losers. It may prove interesting if you want to spend nearly two hours of your time trying not to make fun of its star/director, so take that into consideration.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Billy Jack.

Review #1196: Billy Jack.

Cast: 
Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack), Delores Taylor (Jean Roberts), Clark Howat (Sheriff Cole), Victor Izay (Doctor), Julie Webb (Barbara), Debbie Schock (Kit), Teresa Kelly (Carol), Lynn Baker (Sarah), Stan Rice (Martin), David Roya (Bernard Posner), John McClure (Dinosaur), Susan Foster (Cindy), Susan Sosa (Sunshine), and Bert Freed (Mr. Stuart Posner) Directed by Tom Laughlin.

Review: 
You may perhaps wonder what exactly is Billy Jack? Well, it sure seems to think it is an action/drama, and its main character is a half-Native American (just go with it) Vietnam veteran that happens to be a Green Beret along with an expert in hapkido who decides to help defend a hippie-themed Freedom School from the other people in town. It sounded a bit ridiculous when I first heard of the premise, and the final product proves to be a strange curiosity, even if it is wildly uneven. Laughlin utilized three different pseudonyms in place of credit for his work as director, producer, and writer (for which he co-wrote with his wife Delores Taylor). Laughlin wrote the screenplay for the film in 1954, inspired by the treatment of Native Americans in Taylor's hometown of Winner, South Dakota. He served as an actor on numerous television programs sprinkled with starring roles such as The Delinquents (1957) before his first directing job with The Young Sinner (1965). He spent years on running a Montessori preschool in Santa Monica, California before it went bankrupt before finally getting a chance to bring the character of Billy Jack to the screen in 1967. The Born Losers was a motorcycle gang movie that took advantage of the popularity of outlaw biker films of the time that was distributed by American International Pictures; the film proved to be a hit, earning millions in rentals. It tries to tell the story of a pacifist loner who tries to hold in his violent urges but can't resist when dealing with prejudice - responding with violence and beating tons of guys with his feet. The film had distribution problems, with AIP and 20th Century Fox both dropping out of distributing the feature before Warner Bros. stepped in. Despite that, Laughlin felt the marketing of the film was not satisfactory, so he decided to re-release it himself in 1973. Made on a budget of $800,000, the movie ultimately turned out to be a success, making millions and being popular with portions of the youth, which led to two sequels (The Trial of Billy Jack and Billy Jack Goes to Washington) released in the decade, although the latter did not have a wide release.

If one is expecting an action flick, they may find themselves a bit disappointed. It is more of a heavy handed piece on numerous issues of the time that seems more designed for the PBS crowd (for which I occasionally call myself part of). It is a film that basks itself in a mix of cynicism and optimism that makes for an uneven experience, as if the passion to make a big statement issue piece outweighed the ultimate result on an entertainment level. I can't say that it actually is a film I can really recommend as something good, but it could serve as a curiosity piece for people wanting something different. It's hard to bash the acting, since some of the actors were amateurs (one of whom being a babysitter for the family prior to being hired for the film); Laughlin is nice to see with his loner character, although he isn't really in the film too much, with the school having more of an emphasis, for better or worse. At least the hapkido sequence is fun. Sure, the shot of him smacking a guy's face with his foot is actually Master Bong Soo Han doing the kick, but it is a pretty amusing sequence nonetheless. Taylor is fairly interesting, being quietly effective while playing the other side of the coin of the pacifism the film shows (or at least tries to show). Roya is alright as the only real main adversary shown through the film, and even then the film doesn't really have much of a hero-villain conflict. For a movie that sure likes to have focus on the kids of the school, it doesn't really have a character worth spending much attention on. I do wonder how the first film is in comparison to this. It is a free-spirit kind of movie that goes all over the place, from having sequences involving a town hall meeting moving into them going to the school and doing some improv to Billy Jack compelling someone to drive their car into a lake by fear to the ultimate climax, which feels very soft with its resolution by the time of the last minute of the 114 minute run-time. This is a strange film, having a message splintered throughout numerous soapboxes that try to grab the attention of its audience that surely had its captivating allure back in the 1970s for certain groups. For me, I just see a movie that is okay, doing fine with some of its intentions while also sometimes feeling like a chore, with its action parts (although perhaps a bit cliche) sticking out just as well as the parts where it tries to espouse about non-violence - for better or worse. If you're big on having a different time with movies by people outside the usual fare of dramas with sprinkles of action, you might have something worth going on. I can find an appreciation for someone who persists on to make a film in their vision (whether with a budget to spare or not), even if I find the film to be a bit unwieldy with its ambitions as is the case here

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.