BILLY JACK

 

Billy Jack is a "classic" 1971 film starring Tom Laughlin as the title character. Billy Jack is a "half-breed" American Indian, a Green Beret Vietnam veteran and a martial arts master of which he displays throughout the movie, especially in the flick's most infamous scene. In the scene, a group of students from the local hippy-dippy Freedom School try to get ice cream from a local shop but are denied service because they were from said local hippy-dippy Freedom School of which the townspeople apparently despise. When the kids get bullied by a gang of local rednecks, Billy Jack steps in and opens a can of whup-ass on said bullying local rednecks. This leads to Billy confronting the town's head redneck where he says his infamous line about--my paraphrasing--how he was gonna take his foot and whup him upside the head with it and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Then guess what happens? Things, as you can probably imagine, only go from bad to worse as the head of Freedom School (played by Tom's real-life wife Delores Taylor) gets raped by the son of the town's head redneck--who was, of course, among those who bullied the children at the ice cream store--and Billy winds up--spoiler alert!--killing him with a karate chop to the throat, all of which leads to a climatic shootout with the cops. When said head of the Freedom School convinces Billy to surrender, all the kids from the school raise their fists in solidarity with the embattled Billy Jack as he's driven away handcuffed in the back of the police car. Billy Jack actually became a hero of sorts to the "peacenik" crowd that was still going on at the time in spite of the violent nature of Billy Jack. While I don't mean to open up a can of political whup-ass here, I guess in SOME peacenik's minds it's okay to inflict on others so long as it's inflicted on the "right" people! In any case, Billy Jack is a pretty good action flick in spite of its hippy-dippy nature and/or its B-movie type quality. Oh yeah, the flick also marked the cinematic debut of none other than George Carlin look-a-like Howard Hesseman who would later be known as the gin-soaked DJ of the "classic" TV show WKRP In Cincinnati. Just thought you'd like to know! A sidenote: That infamous kick-to-the-head in that aforementioned confrontation scene wasn't actually "performed" by Mr. Laughlin but rather his karate instructor on the set who is said to be one of only a handful of people to be able to "perform" that particular karate kick. There were also three other Billy Jack flicks, including the first one--which wasn't Billy Jack--The Born Losers (where Billy goes after a gang-raping motorcycle gang), the follow-up to Billy Jack The Trial Of Billy Jack (where BJ opens up a can of whup-ass whilst in prison) and the fourth and final BJ flick Billy Jack Goes To Washington (where BJ goes to . . . well, you know!). There was supposed to be a fifth Billy Jack flick some years ago but, unfortunately, it never came to fruition. Again, just thought you'd like to know!