Jeremy Slate – The Magnificent 60s

The indie movement wasn’t embraced back in the day the way it is now. Occasionally an indie auteur would find favor – John Cassavetes (Shadows, 1958), for example – although it was another decade before he made another movie that carried his particular stamp. With such an abundance of movies arriving from Sweden, Italy and France, critics didn’t have to go far to find material from outside the limited Hollywood prism that they could pump up and make themselves feel important.

So indie writer-producer-director-actor Tom Laughlin failed to gain notice. There had been no upsurge of critical support for his first two features, The Young Sinner (1961) and The Proper Time (1962), both of whose subject matters should have generated some coverage. In fact, they’re still ignored, not a single reviews for either on Imdb unless you count TV Guide. So when he came to his third picture, The Born Losers, he hid behind anonymity, the movie helmed by “T.C. Frank” and produced by “Don Henderson” with “James Lloyd” (in reality female lead Elizabeth James) allocated the screenwriting credit.

And it was, ostensibly, a biker pic, so no self-respecting critic was going to give it the time of day even though The Wild Angels – 83 critical reviews on Imdb – the previous year had attracted attention though largely through its nepo cast, Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra the children of Hollywood legends, in which the bikers were cast as innocent victims of authority.

So critics failed to note that The Born Losers was pretty much the first movie with an ecological theme and that it was probably only the second to deal with racism against Native Americans – Abraham Polonsky, on the other hand, got massive critical mileage for covering the same theme in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969).

And there’s nothing redemptive about these bikers, not given a free pass as in Wild Angels or deified as in Easy Rider (1969). But the picture certainly emphasizes their attraction, especially to teenage females entranced by what they view as an exciting alternative to Dullsville, USA. Girls are seduced by the image of bikers being akin to old-style cowboys, pioneers of the west enjoying a freedom few others dared even pursue. In the Californian sun girls jiggle around in bikinis, excited at the revving bikes.

Nor is Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) the kind of two-fisted vigilante protector of the underdog as exemplified by Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. In fact, where Eastwood and Bronson generally dodge judgement of their maverick style, Billy Jack gets into more trouble with the law for preventing a young man being beaten to death than the bikers attempting to beat the victim to death.

But unlike the Eastwood and Bronson vehicles, the actor Laughlin isn’t center stage all the time. And that’s primarily what makes the picture work. The director in Laughlin is very even-handed, covering the various aspects that produce a more than tolerable narrative and one that also reflected what would be a later Hollywood trope, the victims too frightened to come forward for fear of further retaliation.

There’s an unusually idyllic opening for a biker picture that telegraphs to the audience this going to be different, Billy Jack surviving with ease in the mountains and bathing under a waterfall. Likewise, Laughlin allows time to build up the two other main characters. Equally, unusually, they both have daddy issues. Wealthy Vicky (Elizabeth James) is devastated when her globe-trotting father fails to turn up for a long-promised rendezvous and biker leader Danny (Jeremy Slate) defies his bullying cop father, who spits in his son’s face. Whatever judgement you pass on the rest of Danny’s actions, he passes muster as a father, affectionately ruffling his son’s hair, and as a brother, standing up for his younger sibling.

You might also be surprised at the fashion statements. Vicky is decked out like Audrey Hepburn with those trademark sunglasses and is apt to take to the road on her two-wheeler wearing a white bikini. Danny wears an ironic version of the Hepburn shades. Whether Vicky’s ensemble is a deliberate attempt to draw comparison with Nancy Sinatra is anybody’s guess but the white boots the college girl wears are remarkably similar to the footwear in Sinatra’s most famous hit.

Once Billy Jack heads for the town, seeking work as a horse wrangler, he hits trouble in part due to overt racism, in part because he refuses to be a bystander when the authorities and citizens fail to act.

There’s an audacious jump-cut that would be the hallmark of more critically-acclaimed directors such as Tarantino, and a scene of bikers arriving over the hill that’s reminiscent of John Ford westerns. And there’s a hint of homosexuality.

Five rapes take place offstage, but their harrowing consequence is not passed over. Mental health is damaged beyond repair, LuAnn (Julie Cohn) afraid to show her face in public, while Vicky is treated as a freak. With the town boasting its “weakest sheriff” and the girls capitulating to intimidation, it’s left to Linda Prang (Susan Foster) to agree to go to court. Luann, though under police protection, is kidnapped, and the bikers capture Vicky and Billy Jack, both girls facing further rape.

There are three stunning twists. Vicky, rather than Billy Jack, saves the day, sacrificing herself to save the Native American. Linda confesses she wasn’t raped, but had gone of her own free will with the bikers before and after the rape charge, in order to spite her mother because the bikers were “everything you hate.” And once justice is done Billy Jack is mistakenly shot by the cops.

While Billy Jack occasionally intervenes, mostly he’s outnumbered and beaten up, so he doesn’t fit the same template as Eastwood and Bronson. And that’s also to the picture’s benefit. This isn’t about the male hero, but male shortcomings and female suffering.

While there’s no great acting, the story is decently-plotted and the emotional jigsaw knits together.

Worth a look, but not if you’re expecting a typical biker picture.

The rocking chair motif in this underrated film is ignored while the door opening and closing in The Searchers (1956) is hailed as one of cinema’s greatest images. Welcome to the world of director Henry Hathaway (Nevada Smith, 1966). Way down the pecking order when it comes to the makers of great westerns, below Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1969) who only made four and Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo, 1959) only three.

Closer inspection, too, of The Wild Bunch (1969) might reveal cinematic ideas that turned up here first. Closer inspection of John Wayne (The Commancheros, 1961) might reveal a mighty fine, very touching, performance.

The genre was chock-full of vengeance, but here that is tempered by mystery over the death of their father, a drunken gambler, that has led to the loss of the family ranch, leaving the mother, for whose funeral the titular sons return, living hand-to-mouth, supplementing the usual sewing and mending with giving guitar lessons.

Hastings (James Gregory), a businessman with big ideas, has taken over the ranch and pretty much the local town of Clearwater. And he’s just hired extra muscle, notorious gunslinger Curley (George Kennedy), to swell his already-growing army.

Only the youngest son, Bud (Michael Anderson Jr), a reluctant college student, is clear of the taint of wrong-doing. John Elder (John Wayne) has a reputation as a gunfighter but unlike shifty younger brother Tom (Dean Martin) doesn’t have a wanted poster following him around. The other son Matt (Earl Holliman) takes after John, some shady action but no legal consequence.

This is certainly not a great fraternal union. When they’re not engaged in low-level investigation or trying to prevent themselves being lynched, they’re bickering and fighting. The only thing that unites them, beyond love of the deceased woman, is determination to continue paying for Bud’s education.

Apart from the ranch, one of Hastings’ other lucrative investments is a firearms business, which allows him to tote around a telescopic rifle which, of course, ensures he can bump off those who get in his way from a distance, without fear of discovery. The easiest way to get rid of the brothers is to have them arrested for murder and to kill off the one man, Sheriff Wilson (Paul Fix), who might have the brains and experience to work out something fishy was going on.

John Wayne is more emotional here than in any picture since The Searchers, though, as you’ll be aware, his emotion is registered through his eyes or bits of business rather than a lengthy speech. And given double duty of looking after the youngest while holding back the more tempestuous Tom.

Dean Martin’s (Five Card Stud, 1968) charm runs thin, as is intended, no woman to gull, and no cliché alcoholism a la Rio Bravo to fall back on. It’s a part he plays completely against type, although you can sense he’s bursting out of those confines in the false eye con. He’s pretty much always brought to heel by Wayne. The one time he defies big brother ends in personal calamity. Imagine a marquee name as big as Dean Martin taking on a role where the part sets him up to be walking in the Duke’s shadow, despite his efforts to break loose.

In fact, unusually for a western, until Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) came long, it’s replete with reversals. Hathaway plays with expectations from the outset, the opening sequence of big beast of a train puffing through fabulous scenery doesn’t bring John, instead, unknown to the waiting brothers, Curley disembarks. Katie Elder’s friend Mary (Martha Hayer) cuts off at the pass any idea the audience might have of incipient romance when she gives John both barrels.

Thanks to the screenplay, Michael Anderson Jr.(Major Dundee, 1965) and Earl Holliman (The Power, 1968) are given more bite than their roles might suggest and James Gregory (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) makes his villain meaty though you suspect the presence of George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) is another lure, creating audience expectation that is not fulfilled. Martha Hyer (The Chase, 1966) is more conscience than glamor, spending most of the time on the sidelines.

You’d be surprised just how lean a production this is, and equally how deftly Hathaway avoids cliches. Just because there’s a kid you don’t need to teach him how to be a man. A huge herd of horses doesn’t need to stampede. Beautiful woman in the vicinity doesn’t necessarily call for a heated love affair. Ending up in jail doesn’t necessitate a bust-out. Villainous gunslinger doesn’t set up obligatory shootout in an empty street.

Hathaway’s unusual, too, in the way he anchors his pictures in reality. Here it’s a funeral director washing the wheels of his hearse, a blacksmith applying shackles.

You’d marvel, too, at just who was involved in fashioning the terrific screenplay: veteran William H. Wright, his first in two decades, Harry Essex (Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954) in his first in eight years, and Allan Weiss whose six other movies were all Elvis Presley vehicles. Hardly the pedigree to produce one of the best westerns of the decade. This is the kind of screenplay where no line is wasted, not when a retort can be used to define character.

Most people remember the rousing theme by Elmer Bernstein (The Scalphunters, 1968), but actually there are also some very innovative musical passages worth listening out for.

Curiously, it was Andrew Sarris, hardly a John Wayne fan, who recognized the movie’s attributes, though in niggardly fashion, “The spectacle of people in Hollywood trying to do something different in a western at this late date is reassuring.”

It’s about time those differences and the picture’s excellence were recognized.

Tag: Jeremy Slate

The Born Losers (1967) ***

The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) ****