THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK (1974)

 I've seen the first two BILLY JACK films(THE BORN LOSERS and BILLY JACK) numerous times over the years and love them dearly so I figured it was time to check out the last two sequels in the series even though I've never really heard much good about them. This 3rd film is super preachy right from the start and tries to be a commentary on the Kent State shooting and killing off student protestors there as well as other violent killings of the 60s and early 70s. The message of non-violent pacifism is also really strong which seems really incongruent with what has been a pretty violent series of exploitation films so far. In fact this one may be one of the most violent of the whole series with hippies and even children being gunned down by the military. Of course this is all to teach us the deep philosophical lesson that violence is bad! I can see why being stuck in the idealistic 60s while the more dour 70s creeped on may have been the reason this film was not much of a success at the time and it seems even more out of place watching it on modern times. Also the close to 2 hour runtime doesn't help at all!

 The next film(BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON) makes the terrible decision to amp up the politics and greatly reduce the violent aspects making this movie look better by comparison.

 

Long-ass trailer but it's also a long-ass movie!:

BILLY JACK (1971)

  Hippie-fu classic as Tom Laughlin takes his character from that great biker flick THE BORN LOSERS and has him defend a school full of hippie youngsters who just keep getting hassled by "the man". If you can deal with all the acoustic folk music it's easy to see why this was a big hit back in 1971 as the flower-power era had not totally ended and been overshadowed by the nihilistic-tinged later 70s. This kind of acts like a last-gasp for the "make love, not war" generation as it depicts rape, racism and plenty of violence to go along with it's message of hope. 

 Dr. Johnny Fever, from WKRP IN CINCINNATI, himself(Howard Hessman) shows up as one of the students (even though he's clearly in his 30s by this point).   

Laughlin would go on to make 2 more sequels with diminishing returns each time.  

THE BORN LOSERS (1967)

 The introduction of the Billy Jack character. The series got super hippie-like/philosophical and political but this first chapter is my favorite. It's your basic exploitation movie tale of a gang of crazy rape-happy bikers who mess with a town where American-Indian/cowboy martial-arts master Billy Jack occasionally hangs out. At first, like all great, kung fu heroes, Billy doesn't want to get involved in the white-man's problems but he ends up right in the middle of all the chaos anyway. One weird thing about this movie is how it starts out with the villains, who we're supposed to hate, being mouthed-off to by a real jackass and shitty driver who smacks right into one of their Harley's and then acts like a smart-ass about it. I mean beating him to a bloody pulp mighta been overkill but this meathead was obviously looking for trouble yappin' off like that. Another strange thing is how the VHS I own of this has a big rated-PG sticker on it when the movie is full of bikers raping young ladies?
 Overall this one is a notch above your typical biker flick with most of the characters actually having some depth to them and being fleshed out. It was also the biggest money-maker for AIP studios up until they released THE AMITYVILLE HORROR which explains all the sequels.
 Jane Russell who was a big sex symbol back in the 40's shows up as a mom of one of the raped gals and in one standout scene does some super hardcore dramatic acting!(overacting?).
 Billy Jack gets his name in the title of all the rest of the films in this series which include:
BILLY JACK (1971)
THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK (1974)
BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON (1977)
There was a planned 5th film titled THE RETURN OF BILLY JACK alternately known under the long insane title of BILLY JACK'S CRUSADE TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ AND RESTORE AMERICA TO ITS MORAL PURPOSE, that was never completed.

Re-released after BILLY JACK became a big hit:

The Italian re-titling gets right to the point!: