I never saw any of the Billy Jack movies, but Nick Offerman, in his new book Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers, fulsomely praises Billy Jack.
You forgot to rub your face first. 
But hey, how about those nude scenes with Delores Taylor?
(Amazed I’m still heterosexual after seeing that.)
Funny you should ask - I just saw “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” for the first time yesterday. I was wondering what a young-ish person today would think of it. It definitely seemed dated in places, but also spoke to issues that still exist.
Billy Jack… not so much.
What about that other woman, the one in the purple shirt? “You’re not gonna look, are you?” “Probably.” (God, I hope that wasn’t Tom Laughlin’s daughter…)
Dolores Taylor’s main photo on the IMDB is from the scene where she’s getting raped by Bernard. Don’t actors get to choose their own photos for these things?
Wow, Billy Jack was a big thing in our household back in the day. My brother, 15 years old or so at the time, was into martial arts and me, being the little sis, was his “training partner.” Memorable because of the bruises!
And what about “One tin soldier”? I still know all the words to that song!
I read somewhere that they used a body double for the long shot of her bathing in the river. Maybe it was the interview on youtube but she wanted to do it.
That’s my favorite part of the movie!
imho The Born Losers was even better. Didn’t have as much peace and love hippie stuff in it.
Just a bad ass fighter up against a biker gang.
I’ve heard Tom made the Born Losers to finance his film Billy Jack. But haven’t confirmed it.
Came out when I was in junior high in West Texas. Hugely popular. I seem to recall it sparked an epidemic of fist-raising whenever a police cruiser passed by.
My dad was into motorcycles and the only movies he liked were Westerns and motorcycle movies. He’d take us to the Drive-In and we saw ALL the American International and other motorcycle movies. I saw The Born Losers when it came to our Drive-In. I thought it was fantstic and became a fan of the character Billy Jack. Then, a few years later when Billy Jack was released and was so popular, I tried to tell some classmates who loved the movie that I had seen another Billy Jack movie a few years previously, but I had no way to prove it. They didn’t believe me, so they teased and bullied me (more than usual) because I “lied” about having seen Billy Jack in a movie before. Bitches.
Billy Jack was filmed in the town/area my Aunt, Uncle and cousins lived in, Prescott, AZ. A lot of movies have been filmed in that spectacular part of Arizona. We visited them once (post-Billy Jack) and Sam Peckinpah was filming Junior Bonner with Steve McQueen in the same Yavapai Country Courthouse square where Billy Jack had the altercation with Bernard. My cousins and I wandered around hoping to see and meet McQueen but it was not to be. We did get ice cream at “Kendall’s Famous Burgers & Ice Cream,” which is still in business today. Another movie filmed in the area was Bless the Beasts and Children.
Billy Jack was so popular in the small city in Kansas where I lived at the time, that when The Trial of Bill Jack came out, there was a loooong line of people stretching down and around the block to get into the local movie palace to see it. That’s the first time I ever saw such a thing.
I liked the first three Billy Jack movies. I never did see Goes To Washington. I just saw on IMDB that Tom Laughlin died in 2013. RIP.
“Yavapai Country Courthouse square” should be Yavapai COUNTY Courthouse square. Missed the edit window.
My Dad and I saw it when it first came out, suffering through it really, until the argument with Bernard in the bar spills outside leading to the face-kicking scene. “Hey!” I said, “They’re coming out of the Green Frog!”
The G F was a dive bar on Whiskey Row which did face the courthouse square which we of course also recognized. After that we paid no attention to the plot whatsoever and had fun looking at the background instead. The swimming scene and I think the rape scene were shot at Lynx Lake, a brand-new at the time artificial lake behind a dam.