Billy Jack (1971)

by J. R. Colson

This very popular, egalitarian, pro-hippie, anti-establishment flick is the highest-grossing privately produced film in history.

It was produced by the film's star, Tom Laughlin, and his wife, Delores Taylor, who plays his kind-of/sort-of girlfriend in the movie. Laughlin actually mortgaged his house to finance this film, and borrowed still more money on top of that.

This little movie is kind of entertaining in its own way. But the message it sends is soooooo typical of our post-WWII, anti-White popular culture.

It seems that Billy Jack, the hero of the film, is a 30-something half-breed (half-Indian, half-White, although he looks very Irish) who was a war hero and Green Beret, who got sick-n-tired of all the killin' in Vietnam (isn't that always the way?).

So, he turned his back on mainstream society (isn't that always the way?) by shuffling off to a 'progressive' (read: hippie) school in the high deserts of the Western U. S., apparently to live in idyllic peace and bliss among the Marxoid, dope-smoking sandal-wearers at the so-called Freedom School, a school for listless, headband-sporting dropouts who refuse to be pigeon-holed by the oppressive, White-guy establishment, ya see.

There, Billy plays reservation cop and hippie-protector, fending off the usual evil advances that always come from European males, in this case from one Mr. Posner, the token evil local White guy, who owns most of the nearby town. Of course.

Oh, yes -- Posner's son, Bernard, is also evil. Like father, like son.

In fact, he is even more evil than his dad. (Isn't that soooo like White folks?)

Anyhoo, the really evil Mr. Posner is always conspiring to bring this peace, love-and-incense outfit to a screeching halt, being the fascist redneck that he is. His sheriff's-deputy buddy, Mike, who is also an evil White guy, gladly helps out in this endeavor.

Adding to their European-based evilness is a scene, not at all germane to the story, in which the evil White guys attempt to shoot wild stallions to get meat to sell to dog-food companies. (Our hero Billy stops them in their terrible deeds, just in the nick of time. Whew!)

First, you, the viewer, gotta understand something, according to the producers of this movie.

Ya see, those hippies are not really bad people like Mr. Posner thinks. Sure, they use Marxist salutes and spout Commie rhetoric, and hate all things White and traditional, and probably grow their own pot, but, heck, who doesn't?

Especially fun for nationalists are the scenes in which the evil Posner Jr. oppresses the peaceful, non-White Indian kids (some of whom like strangely European) in a nearby ice-cream shop, by pouring flour on their heads to make them 'white.' (Heh, heh.)

Even little kids get in on the peacenik, Marxist, anti-White bandwagon in this movie; an 11-year-old girl, played by Teresa Kelly, gleefully joins in the taunting of the evil White sheriff's deputy, while the deputy is searching the school for his daughter, who fled his home after he punched her for getting pregnant underneath various non-White dope urchins in Haight-Ashbury. (Isn't that always the way?)

The tension builds steadily as the evil White guys kill one of the always-so-peaceful Indian youths, and also rape Billy Jack's far-too-old-for-him girlfriend (played by Delores Taylor) as an additional insult to humanity.

You see, Billy just has to track down and kill Posner Jr., the guy who raped Billy's girl. Ya don't do that to Billy, ya see, and get away with it, especially if you are an evil White oppressor like Posner, Jr.

Finally, Billy gets into a shoot-fest with Mike, that horrible White guy redneck sheriff's deputy, and of course Billy kills Mike with a well-placed gunshot to the forehead. (The original theater audience no doubt burst into applause when that happened, it being 1971, when Marxist cop-hate was at its peak.)

Billy finally gives up his noble cause after barricading himself inside a shack for too many hours. (He had to, ya see; he was surrounded by too many of those too-White sheriff's deputies and state police, who wanted to harm him simply because he was a half-breed, ya see).

As Billy is thankfully carted off to the pokey in handcuffs, his youthful underlings all slowly stand and give him a final send-off: a closed-fisted, Marxist salute.

How appropriate.

J.R. COLSON

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