# Billy Jack movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2020, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736 "2020-07-19T05:54:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/1 "2020-07-19T05:54:02Z")
Billy fucking Jack! I saw this movie when I was about 12 with my Dad and my brothers. Could not belive it as there were some moments of female nudity, don’t know if Dad knew about that or was just surprised. But he did not make us leave, he was much more liberal than my Mom. Who knew they made a Blu-Ray of this, just downloaded. In many ways it is a cheesy movie, one reason being the theme song, but damn if there aren’t some moments of truth. Like when Billy Jack says that the white man made over a thousand treaties with the Indians and broke every single one of them. And “when policeman break the law, there is no law.” And my, sadly, favorite scene, just before Billy Jack surrenders. Jean: We’ll go someplace else, someplace were it doesn’t have to be like this. Billy Jack: Oh, really? Tell me, where is that place? Where is it? In what remote corner of this country-no, the entire goddamn planet- is there a place were people really care about one another and really love each other? Now, you tell me were such a place is, and I promise you that I’ll never hurt another human being as long as I live. JUST ONE PLACE! So go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend. You will be in the majority of this fucked up human race. I still keep trying to “Imagine”, getting more difficult day by day. Like Comment Share ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/2 "2020-07-19T06:29:48Z")
Well hell. I knew that Tom Laughlin was the first to release a movie nationwide at the same time, followed soon after by Jaws. But this, I did not know- _If there was any real justice in this false and phony business called show, he would be championed along with visionaries like Spielberg, Lucas, Francis Copolla and William Friedkin as the innovators who pushed the outlandish, over-the-top event movie into the motion picture mainstream. He would sit alongside the noted names and share their status as founding fathers and formidable Hollywood Hall of Fame players. Instead, he’s now viewed as a complaining crackpot, a man with an oversized axe to grind who offers up his political polemics as part of an online cottage industry. Vehemently proud of what he’s accomplished, he never downplays the role of Billy Jack – either in his life or inside the entertainment arena. Perhaps it’s about time the rest of us take a similar stand. After all, he did invent the first blockbuster, whether popular opinion likes it or not._ I did not know there was serious film reviews about the movie. I thought it was just a B Movie I first saw as a kid. But when you have a very popular movie that talks about our country’s history with native Americans that also criticizes the police, when you have a young girl at a city council meeting reading a quote about law and order that was from Hitler, and a character saying that that point of review was being stated by Nixon, no wonder Laughlin was marginalized Must read more about this > **[Billy Jack, the Original Blockbuster, PopMatters](https://www.popmatters.com/billy-jack-the-original-blockbuster-2496246373.html)** > > It was the original blockbuster. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/3 "2020-07-19T07:23:08Z")
Yep, he played the bosom card, and I fell for it too, being a drooling teen prevert like **Mabes**. My memory of the film is vague, apart from the occasional kung-fu/hapkido and there was a street theatre scene where they really stuck it to the Man, although that could have been in the even better sequel. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/4 "2020-07-19T07:49:12Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > I did not know there was serious film reviews about the movie. It got serious film reviews because at the time, it was regarded as a serious movie. Heck, MAD magazine even featured it as one of their movie parodies: “Billy Jock.” Number 168, July, 1974, page 41: > **[MAD Issue #168 - Read MAD Issue #168 comic online in high...](https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/MAD/Issue-168?id=72923)** > > Read MAD Issue #168 comic online free and high quality. Unique reading type: All pages - just need to scroll to read next page. If you got parodied in MAD, you were a serious movie. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/5 "2020-07-19T08:15:57Z")
Well I hope you are joking about the prevert thing. My memory was vague also about most of it, I remembered the very brief flashes of boobs, and about 20 years ago I rented the VHS, and I remembered the scene, Billy Jack saying, “I am going to take this right foot, and wop you (the Sherriff) on the left side or your face, and there is not a damn thing you are going to be able to do about it.” And he does it and the Sherriff goes down like the proverbial sack of potatoes. Then Billy Jack kicks the asses of about eight guys and they go down, but as there are about a dozen guys, eventually Billy Jack goes down, unlike in a Bruce Lee or Tarantion movie where he would have walked away unscathed. When I first stated this thread, I had just started the movie. And I thought I would be reminiscing about an American B-Movie Kung-Fu film, like Kill Bill. This is a serious film. It speaks to the treament of the Native Americans, out of control police, etc. But it is also balanced. Billy Jack talks about the Native American ways and how they didn’t need anything to be written down, their word was good, and the whole “noble savage” bullshit, the Native Americans had war, and slaves, and they abused their environment at times, and Billy Jack’s girlfriend argues against him in the final scence where he is willing to die, as in I guess the old saying among Native Americans, “Today is as good as any day to die” , attribued to Crazy Horse though unverified. My whole point here is, I started watching the movie tonight as a lark, to remember this movie I saw when I was young. I wanted to see the scene when Billy Jack goes BERSERK and puts Dinosaur through a window after he and Posner abused some girls in an ice cream shop, pouring flour on their faces to make them white, so they could be served. I remembered that when I first saw the film. But the film is more than that. I think it stands up as a serious, and underrated, film. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/6 "2020-07-19T09:08:34Z")
Its 30 minutes of film and an hour of dumb filler like performance art and music. With a dash of statutory rape thrown in. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/7 "2020-07-19T09:29:19Z")
I haven’t seen the film, but a movie can be serious with important things to say, and still be bad. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/8 "2020-07-19T10:13:13Z")
This one wasn’t. It’s an awful, cheesy movie. This was actually a sequel to Born Losers, the movie that Laughlin could get made. It’s success was due to brilliant marketing pushing the movie ahead of it’s release. Yes, there was a tiny amount of nudity, which was a lot for the early 70s. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/9 "2020-07-19T11:03:14Z")
Its a part flower child film and part green beret revenge film. With a heavy dose of Loughlins heavy handed messaging. Its a fun movie to watch as a kid but it just doesnt hold up. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/10 "2020-07-19T13:29:54Z")
Athe perverted thing about the movie is that Tom Laughlin had a relationship with the 14 year old girl in the film. I believe they married later. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/11 "2020-07-19T14:35:12Z")
I saw it as an adult and said “Hey, that looks like Bandelier [National Monument]!”. It was . ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/12 "2020-07-19T14:44:14Z")
The sequels are even worse. Revenge fantasy written by a seven year old, with plot logic to match. He was the Steven Segal of his time. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/13 "2020-07-19T15:21:16Z")
[Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Laughlin) says he was still married to Delores Taylor when he died - 57 years! ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/14 "2020-07-19T21:02:40Z")
also he had some weird politicals ideas and tried running for political office a few times in the late 80s and early 90s and was just outright laughed at … ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-jack-movie/915736/15 "2020-07-19T21:12:34Z")
Yeah, it was a cheesy movie. But to my adolescent West Texas self, it had female nudity! And taught you could be a hippie _and_ a bad-ass warrior _at the same time._ What was not to love?