A Force of One (1979)

Former karate champ Chuck Norris continued his ascendance to B-movie stardom with this lifeless martial-arts saga, which tries to compensate for its myriad shortcomings by showcasing long scenes of Norris in action. Karate aficionados may find this picture more satisfying than the actor’s previous flick, Good Guys Wear Black (1978), but, as always, catering to a niche audience is the easiest way to alienate everyone else. Accordingly, viewers hoping for things like believable acting, intriguing drama, and passable writing should direct their attention elsewhere. Model-turned-actress Jennifer O’Neill stars as Mandy Rust, the lone female on a San Diego police unit tasked with investigating narcotics activity in the city. When two cops from the unit are murdered via karate, Mandy persuades her boss (Clu Gulager) that everyone on the unit needs martial-arts training. Then she recruits title contender Matt Logan (Norris), who runs a local dojo, for the job. Predictably, Matt gets drawn into the investigation, suffers a horrific personal loss that makes him vengeful, and helps the police take down the drug kingpin who ordered the hits on the cops. There’s also a twist involving a corrupt detective, a quasi-romance between Mandy and Matt, and a touchy-feely subplot concerning Matt’s guardianship of a plucky teenager. It’s all very rote, with nary an original idea in evidence, and the storytelling is turgid in the extreme. Scenes plod along aimlessly, and the only thing flatter than the writing is the acting. Norris is awful, since he had not yet learned to emulate Clint Eastwood’s less-is-more approach, so his line deliveries sound awkward and his “emoting” is pathetic. O’Neill is almost as bad, a delicate beauty preening her way through the absurd role of a tough street cop. Gulager borders on camp with his twitchy take on the clichéd role of a put-upon top cop, and Ron O’Neal (of Superflyfame), who plays one of the officers on the drug unit, waffles between distracted indifference and silly swagger. In short, if you want to see an in-his-prime Norris deliver lightning-fast punches and walloping roundhouse kicks, A Force of One will satisfy for needs. Beyond that? Not so much.

A Force of One: LAME

Golden Needles (1974)

          The first 10 minutes of this actioner from Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse are wonderfully trashy. Over a shot of a primitive golden statue, a narrator explains hokey lore about how the statue’s design reveals secret acupuncture points—used properly, these points release incredible sexual pleasure, but used improperly, they lead to instant death. Hence the statue’s name: “The Golden Needles of Ecstasy.” Cut to a decrepit, wheelchair-bound Chinese man getting escorted into a modern-day acupuncture parlor for a session with the needles. Once the session is completed, the man rises to his feet, magically invigorated and ready for private time with his young female escorts—until two bad guys enter the parlor carrying flamethrowers. The assailants torch the old man, his ladies, and the acupuncturist before absconding with the statue. That’s how to get the cinematic party started, folks!

          Although the remaining 80 minutes of Golden Needles pale by comparison in terms of energy and verve, the movie has an appealing quality of loopy escapism. The picture combines Far East exotica with mysticism, sex, violence, and a slew of lively performances that border on camp. Golden Needles is ridiculous, but that’s why it’s fun to watch, even though the overwrought plotting eventually slows things down. The gist of the story is that various parties in Hong Kong want to acquire the “Golden Needles” statue. Dan (Joe Don Baker) is a towering American who knows his way around the local underworld, so he’s hired by visiting American Felicity (Elizabeth Ashley) to steal the statue, in exchange for cash and sex. (Dan drives a hard bargain, wink-wink.) Eventually, Dan finds himself in the midst of a caper that involves a kooky American crime boss (Burgess Meredith) and various representatives of the Hong Kong mob.

          Given his previous success with martial-arts pictures, Clouse hits the chop-socky button every so often, with kicks and punches thrown by Baker, Jim Kelly (Black Belt Jones), and sexy Asian actress Frances Fong. Yet Golden Needlesis only marginally a martial-arts flick, because the action scenes tend to focus on bare-knuckle brawls and death-defying escapes—at one point, Dan gets trapped in a factory into which a bad guy has released dozens of snakes. (An exciting score by Lalo Schifin helps pull together the random story elements.) Golden Needles won’t meet anyone’s criteria for quality cinema, but for sheer silly excitement, it’s hard to beat a movie that features a pervy Meredith licking his lips while his giant black manservant receives potentially lethal acupuncture, or that features man-mountain Baker leading pursuers on an epic chase through an overcrowded Hong Kong harbor and the surrounding area.

Golden Needles: GROOVY

Bamboo Gods and Iron Men (1974)

One of several mid-’70s flicks meshing the blaxploitation and martial-arts genres, Bamboo Gods and Iron Men is either mediocre and substandard, depending on your tolerance level. The film has a simplistic storyline that only occasionally lapses into incoherence, so it’s not an outright train wreck, and the sleaze factor isn’t too extreme, so the movie doesn’t represent an assault on good taste. But, man, is Bamboo Gods and Iron Men dull, particularly since it’s purported to be a comedy/action hybrid—the comedy isn’t mostly absent, and the action is underwhelming. Impressively built James Inglehart stars as Cal Jefferson, an American prizefighter honeymooning in the Philippines with his new bride (Shirley Washington). The Jeffersons stumble into two fraught situations. First, Cal saves a local man (played by Filipino comedy star Chiquito) from drowning, thus triggering the man’s unwanted servitude, in accordance with local custom. Second, Cal buys an artifact as a gift for his missus, unaware that gangsters want the item. Chases and fights ensue. The bull-in-a-china-shop possibilities of a towering black boxer brawling his way through the Philippines are largely underused, since the direction and script are unimaginative, so the only novel scene involves Chiquito’s character sparring with his “master”; after Cal tries to teach some sweet-science techniques, the tiny Asian whips off his gloves to display martial-arts acumen. Inglehart’s acting is neither embarrassing nor memorable, and Washington is merely attractive, but Bamboo Gods and Iron Men is filled with anonymous supporting actors of dubious credentials. Playing the main villain, for instance, is a bland white dude named Ken Metcalfe, who also co-wrote the movie; his stilted acting wouldn’t pass muster in a high-school theater production. About the kindest thing one can say about Bamboo Gods and Iron Man is that it might satisfy some undiscriminating viewers with its abundance of brawls, funky music, and lurid nude scenes.

Bamboo Gods and Iron Men: LAME

Take a Hard Ride (1975)

          Despite featuring several interesting B-movie personalities and despite having a solid story premise, the European-made Western Take a Hard Ride never realizes its potential. Part of the problem has to do with audience expectations. Since the movie features blaxploitation stars Jim Brown, Jim Kelly, and Fred Williamson—as well as spaghetti-Western stalwart Lee Van Cleef—the obvious approach would have been to combine the actors into a fighting unit for a Magnificent Seven-style flick. Alas, Take a Hard Ride is essentially a Brown-Williamson buddy picture in which Kelly and Van Cleef, among others, play supporting roles. Worse, director Antonio Margheriti employs a hacky visual style that makes every scene feel haphazard and rushed. The picture is watchable, but it gets awfully dull after a while, especially because Brown and Williamson end up playing repetitive variations on the exact same scene for most of the film’s middle hour.

          The story hook is simple enough. Black gunslinger Pike (Brown) accompanies his white boss, rancher Bob Morgan (Dana Andrews), to the end of a cattle drive, where Morgan gets paid $86,000 in cash. After Morgan has a fatal heart attack, the sterling Pike vows to return the money to Morgan’s widow. Unfortunately, once Pike sets off on his journey, various criminals get wind of his cargo and conspire to ambush him. One such outlaw, slick gambler Tyree (Williamson), saves Pike from an attacker and subsequently accompanies Pike on the trail—even though Tyree says outright that he plans to rob Pike once they reach the Mexican border. Another pursuer is Kiefer (Van Cleef), a bounty hunter who eventually gathers a small army of money-hungry varmints to chase after Pike. There’s also a subplot involving an ex-hooker, Catherine (Catherine Spaak), whom Pike and Tyree rescue from rapists—she joins Pike’s group, as does her mute Indian sidekick, Kashtok (Kelly).

          Considering that Take a Hard Ride is basically a chase movie, it’s amazing how little excitement the narrative generates. The script is filled with dull scenes of Pike and Tyree challenging each other, and the supporting characters are under-utilized; for instance, Kiefer spends most of the picture standing on ridges and squinting while other people get into fights. And speaking of the movie’s numerous battles, none is novel or surprising—think standard fire-and-duck shootouts, with the minor exception of quick bits during which Kelly takes down attackers with karate and throwing knives. If one struggles for a compliment, it could be noted that Take a Hard Ride has better production values that most movies starring Van Cleef or Williamson—but that’s not saying much.

Take a Hard Ride: FUNKY

T.N.T. Jackson (1974)

A failed attempt to generate another female blaxploitation icon in the vein of Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown, this very short feature combines the worst elements of blaxploitation with the worst elements of Asian-themed martial-arts flicks. It’s two shitty movies for the price of one! Lovely Jeannie Bell plays T.N.T. Jackson, a young woman who travels to Hong Kong after her brother dies there under mysterious circumstances. Using her ass-kicking karate skills, she impresses members of the local underworld and learns that her brother was involved with heroin dealers including Charlie (Stan Shaw). T.N.T. seduces Charlie to get close to him and learn about his operation, and T.N.T. clashes with another female American in Charlie’s circle, pretty blonde Elaine (Pat Anderson), who turns out to be an undercover cop. (Rest assured that she’s a karate expert, too, just like nearly everyone else in the movie.) Over the course of 68 dull and grungy minutes, T.N.T. gets vengeance and upsets a far-reaching drug operation. She also gets naked repeatedly, as in an absurdly exploitive topless karate scene. (Watch for the continuity error during that scene in which her black panties suddenly become white for one shot.) Badly acted, cheaply filmed, sluggishly paced, and ugly on nearly every level, T.N.T. Jackson isn’t the worst movie of its type, but it’s a far cry from the Pam Grier-starring films it was presumably intended to emulate. While the story makes sense, more or less, the myriad karate scenes get mind-numbing very quickly. As for the cast, Bell is appealing if not particularly memorable, Anderson is sexy as her adversary-turned-ally, and it’s a bummer to see the sensitive actor Shaw stuck in a one-note role as a cocksure thug.

T.N.T. Jackson: LAME

Billy Jack (1971) & The Trial of Billy Jack (1974) & Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977)

          Actor-turned-auteur Tom Laughlin first portrayed Billy Jack, a karate-chopping recluse who fights for righteous causes, in the 1967 biker movie The Born Losers. Laughlin occupied several behind-the-scenes roles on the picture but used pseudonyms for directing, producing, and writing—one gets the impression he wanted to downplay the idea of his movie as an ego trip. Furthermore, The Born Losers hinted at Laughlin’s agenda of creating a platform for sharing progressive political ideas. Combined with the inherently weird nature of the Billy Jack character, a spiritually enlightened pacifist who solves problems by killing people, The Born Losers revealed that Laughlin was one complicated cat. However, The Born Losers was just the overture.

          After other, non-Billy Jack projects fell through, Laughlin returned to his signature role for the 1971 release Billy Jack. In the series’ defining installment, Billy Jack is the guardian of a hippy-dippy school in rural California, so when local thugs prey upon the school—going so far as to and murder a Native American student and rape saintly teacher Jean (played by Delores Taylor, the real-life Mrs. Laughlin and his constant cinematic collaborator)—Billy Jack springs into action. He carves his way through a goon squad of redneck locals determined to undermine Jean’s flower-power educational aspirations, using the martial art hapkido and the lethal skills he learned while serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam.

          Laughlin stacks the narrative deck, presenting the bad guys as one-note ogres and the good guys as paragons of virtue, with Billy Jack occupying a weird middle ground between the opposite poles. The movie is a disaster politically, arguing that violence is the path to peace, and it’s strange from a storytelling perspective, with meandering sequences that depict touchy-feely rap sessions and other with-it school practices. Yet the cumulative effect of the movie is quite something, one man’s plea for greater compassion in modern society.

          Laughlin also cuts an impressive figure, dressed in head-to-toe denim and sporting one of the coolest hats in ’70s cinema, a flat-brimmed black cowboy job with a multicolored band. Billy Jack became one of the most successful independent movies of the era—although originally delivered to theaters by Warner Bros., the movie was re-released by Laughlin once he regained distribution rights, and the second time around, Billy Jack did bang-up business. Further sequels therefore became inevitable, though Laughlin quickly lost sight of what made Billy Jack popular.

          For instance, the next installment, The Trial of Billy Jack, is a three-hour death march into the surreal wilderness of Laughlin’s imagination. Weakly framed around vignettes of a hospitalized Jean (Taylor) recovering from a mysterious incident at the school, the picture weaves together three primary storylines—Billy Jack’s legal struggles stemming from the events in the last movie; the ongoing culture clash between the locals and Jean’s school, which escalates to even greater levels of violence; and, finally, Billy Jack’s Native American-styled vision quest in the desert.

          Although the movie includes a few exciting fight scenes, Laughlin also makes room for embarrassingly sensitive musical numbers featuring students at Jean’s school, to say nothing of interminably earnest and repetitive speeches. The Trial of Billy Jack is Billy Jack on steroids, but not necessarily in a good way—it’s among the most excessive and indulgent movies of the ’70s, a period not known for cinematic restraint. By the time the threequel climaxes in a ridiculous bloodbath meant to evoke the historical atrocities of My Lai and Sand Creek, it’s clear The Trial of Billy Jack has left the normal realm of human consciousness. Depending on what you bring to the movie, you’ll either find this singular experience a heavy trip or a major bummer.

          Unfortunately, no such ambiguity is needed when appraising the final opus in the series, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, which is wretched. As the title implies, the movie is a direct remake of the Jimmy Stewart classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). And, yeah, that means we get to see Billy Jack in a suit, filibustering Congress, which is exactly as awkward and uninteresting as it sounds. Beyond being insipid, Billy Jack Goes to Washington is the only movie in the series badly marred by technical shortcomings—whereas the other pictures have a certain kind of swaggering style, Billy Jack Goes to Washington suffers from dodgy sound work, with many scenes featuring distractingly overdubbed dialogue. Unless you’re determined to see every frame of this series, the final film is to be avoided at all costs.

          Given the diminishing returns of the series, it’s unsurprising Laughlin never completed his proposed fifth entry, The Return of Billy Jack, production on which began and ended quickly in 1985. But, to his credit, he’s still regularly issuing messages on his website, circa 2012, claiming that a brand-new Billy Jack picture is in the works. You’ve been warned.

Billy Jack: GROOVY

The Trial of Billy Jack: FREAKY

Billy Jack Goes to Washington: SQUARE