The Born Losers

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.

The first "Billy Jack" film is a serious examination of rape and personal cowardice disguised as a biker/drug exploitation film. It manages to satisfy on both counts. No nudity, lots of outrageous clothing, and plenty of nazi bikers. Not quite as good as its sequel (which was written previously) but also not so preachy and talky. Dig the "nature carnage" at the film's beginning. Decent photography (marred in the DVD presentation by pan and scan process), but mid to low grade actors. Russell appears as a burnt-out, harried mom. Is she really acting? She's way over the top, but fun as always.

p.s. (2008, second viewing) p.s. the movie isn't going to appeal to everyone, but it's coming from a good place compared to a lot of exploitation films. There's a lot of classic Hollywood here, Tom Laughlin drawing on a lot of his roots. Like "Billy Jack" this movie is a very passionate statement against rape and it condemns society's attitude about rape. But because the victims are so beautiful, frankly the movie feels more exploitative and less serious than the more successful sequel. You could look on this movie as a learning experience for Laughlin, but it's a very interesting drive-in biker movie in and of itself, very different and more carefully put together than a lot of its brethren. For example this time around I noticed that the film can be seen as an anti-Western -- as opposed to the stereotypical concept of a white man rescuing the white virgins from the "indians", here we have an ostensibly Native American hero rescuing the white women from white bikers (bikes and jeeps standing in for horses and stagecoaches in the traditional Western iconography of course).

So on the evening on 5/11/15 across America much of the country's senior population settled in after dinner at 8/7PM to TCM to enjoy a movie. Perhaps a frothy Esther Williams vehicle, or a Gene Kelly musical or maybe some 1940's film noir with Alan Ladd. I can only imagine the reactions when they discovered their favorite movie channel was showing 2 hours of mayhem, featuring brutal violence and gang rapes as a motorcycle gang, "The Born Losers" terrorize a California town in this 1967 classic of the biker flick genre. No complaints here, I know they've shown this very late at night before, not sure if they've ran it in prime time but one thing I love about TCM is the variety in showing films rarely seen elsewhere.

AIP did a great job of gaging the pulse of the young film goers in the 50's through the early 70's. In the 50's they had rock n roll and juvenile delinquent movies, and in the early and middle 60's they had all the silly Frankie & Annette beach comedies. By 1967 they had ran their course and AIP went to edgier stuff, with biker and drug flicks, cheaply made stuff for drive-in's and a teenage audience. "Born Losers" is notable for the introduction of the Billy Jack character. The sequel, the pretentious and heavy handed "Billy Jack" received much more attention and was more successful and would spawn one more sequel, the truly dreadful "Trial of Billy Jack" which I must admit, I've never been able to sit through entirely.

However, the most compelling character in BL isn't Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack, but screen veteran Jeremy Slate as Danny Carmody, the leader of the biker gang. Slate actually brings a touch of humor (like wearing goofy white sunglasses that look like they were ripped off an old lady) to an otherwise repulsive thug and in my book does a superior of more believable job of playing a biker gang boss than Brando did in "The Wild One." Also notable is the great Jane Russell, in a small part as a washed out alcoholic mom of a girl who fell in the bikers. Now in her mid-40's, time hadn't been too kind to the gal who was a sex goddess in the 40's and 50's with a spectacular figure.

As with all AIP films, much of it is unintentionally hilarious and lousy. Fun to watch though and thinking about, maybe it's not a bad call for TCM to run it in prime time, considering the original target for this is now between 60 and 70.

Contrary to one reviewer's information, "Born Losers" was a smash at the box office the FIRST time it was released in '67. And it's easy to see why. It's the most entertaining of the "biker movie" genre, because it has a story and vivid characters. Elizabeth James is Vicky Barrington, a vacationing college student who comes up against a nasty motorcycle gang in a California mountain town. Naturally, the gang, headed by a weathered Jeremy Slate, take off after Vicky (who is on a motorcycle wearing white boots and a matching bikini) and two of them eventually catch and rape her. She's not the only victim. Three incredibly foolish local girls visit the gang's "clubhouse" and meet a similar fate. But they don't have a champion like Tom Laughlin (in his first appearance as Billy Jack) who manages to get Vicky out of danger (at least for a while) and subsequently falls in love with her. "Born Losers" has a great score by "Wild Angels" composer (and future Lieutenant Governor of California) Mike Curb, good acting by a large cast, and a fine cameo appearance by Jane Russell as the trashy mother of one of the victimized girls. Add some beautiful locations and some slick motorcycle stunts, and you have a "Born Winner!" Incidentally, beautiful Ms. James turned up as a police dispatcher in the seventies cult classic, "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry". She also wrote the screenplay for "Born Losers" (under the pen name 'E. James Lloyd').

While the acting and plot were weak, this movie is worth watching, if only to educate or remind us of the tumultuous 60s... with the ending of the Vietnam War, Hells Angels, drugs-sex-and-rock-n-roll... in a society where returning Vietnam Vets were considered renegades and loose cannons or just plain crazy... in a society where we screamed peace, while resorting to violence... in a society where women's lib was just beginning to surface in the American Consciousness, with the burning of the bras... in a society where the youth of our country cried out against the "establishment", and we "did our own thing"... where altruism flourished along with the rise in cults, crusading preachers, and activism... in a time when man first walked on the moon... when we, as a society believed... nothing at all could stop us. In all, the movie depicted well the general atmosphere of beliefs and attitudes of the times, that, while they might seem moronic to us in today's world, perhaps, 30 years in the future, our attitudes and beliefs will seem moronic to the generations to follow.