COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970)

Director: Joseph Sargent

Writers: James Bridges adapting the 1966 novel Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones

Producer: Stanley Chase

Cast: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert, Martin E. Brooks, Marion Ross, Georg Stanford Brown, Willard Sage, Alex Rodine, Dolph Sweet, Byron Morrow, James Hong, Sid McCoy, Paul Frees (Colossus voice), Leonid Rostoff, Robert Cornthwaite, Serge Tschernisch, Lew Brown, Tom Basham

Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) is the creator of a supercomputer called Colossus. It independently controls the nuclear defenses of the United States. It has been created to demonstrate to the world that war is now futile because the swift and uncompromising logic of Colossus will retaliate against any aggression. Soon after the U.S. President’s (Gordon Pinsent) worldwide announcement of the activation of Colossus, the supercomputer detects another similar computer system in the Soviet Union and demands to be allowed to link with it. This is the first of the supercomputer’s commands that must be obeyed to keep it from firing nuclear missiles at human population centers.

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Perhaps the most prescient science fiction film ever made, and one whose speculated perils now seem all too imminent, Colossus: The Forbin Project bombed at the box office. It proved how tough it usually was to sell serious sci-fi to the movie-going public. It also proved how commercial success is often no indication of a film’s merit.

Nowadays, since computers are embedded into practically every aspect of civilization, one may think that the public would be more amenable to the message of such a film. I rather doubt that. The only time a sci-fi message passes with the mainstream masses, it is buried in a bunch of stuff that is there just to look cool (action, CGI effects, heroic bluster, snarky attitudes, etc). That is the only stuff that registers with most viewers, while the message, sincere or otherwise, is ignored. To push the uncomfortable consequences of sentient technology into perceptions of the blissfully conformist and stubbornly ignorant is an uphill battle. To anyone with an attention span, watching Colossus: The Forbin Project today feels like a coldy calculated kick in the crotch.

This film was smart not to depict the creator of Colossus as being mad or a megalomaniac. Dr. Charles Forbin is practically a superman. (Okay, he is not quite perfect; he uses gin instead of vodka for his martinis.) Forbin is brilliant, confident, calm, handsome, polite, and decisive, yet never strident. That is why this film’s scenario feels so uncomfortable. You could never find a more ideal human being to be the creator of a supercomputer that controls nuclear defense systems with the intent of making war obsolete, yet even Forbin fails to foresee the menace his creation becomes.

The message here is that sentient technology will not be contained and controlled by anyone, no matter how smart or well-intentioned that technology’s creator may be. Wake up, folks! The tech moguls gunning for each other in our Wild West of data-driven commerce are not as noble as Dr. Charles Forbin. Do you really think they will ever grapple with the AI control issues in their still-not-sufficiently-regulated vanity projects? If they are ever compelled to do so, will it be in time?

With his birth name of Hans Gudegast, Eric Braeden had starred as the ongoing German antagonist Capt. Hans Dietrich in the World War II television series The Rat Patrol (1966–68). He would become a frequent guest star in a multitude of episodes in other series throughout the ’60s and ’70s. For Colossus: The Forbin Project, Hans Gudegast was prompted to change his name to the less Germanic-sounding Eric Braeden. These days, Braeden is certainly best known as starring in the role of Victor Newman for the past 44 years in the long-running CBS television network soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973 to present).

Braeden’s performance as Dr. Charles Forbin is perfect for a man who seems heroic without ever trying to be. In fact, the Forbin character is something of a paradox; he is the one chiefly responsible for the Colossus supercomputer threatening all of mankind, yet he manages to keep us from hating him. His project’s aim was certainly a noble one, and he has the best chance of figuring out how to defeat the menace he has created. Braeden’s Forbin has us rooting for him because he always seems capable and respectable. It really says something about an actor’s presence when they can command your attention without histrionics and maintain our respect, despite his character’s ingenious, humanity-threatening blunder.

Initially, Forbin seems intrigued, rather than concerned, about his creation’s first indications of sentience. Perhaps Forbin’s chief flaw is that his scientific ego probably never allowed for the possibility that there could ever be any eventuality in his project that would be beyond his intelligence to cope with. His team of fellow computer scientists also seems merely surprised and awed by the independent behavior of their handiwork. Their feelings soon turn to dread when Colossus displays a do-it-or-else attitude backed up with nukes.

Once Colossus starts making demands, it is quickly apparent that it intends to assert control over all mankind. The supercomputer also still needs its creator, at least for a while. A series of video cameras throughout the Colossus compound and monitors displaying the text of Colossus’s queries and commands allow Forbin to converse with his brainchild. Colossus demands that Forbin become a virtual prisoner, who is kept to a strict daily schedule and under constant surveillance. Forbin must suffer such indignities as beginning his day with exercise at 7:00 a.m. (Christ, I don’t even have a pulse that early!), Colossus critiquing his martini mixology, and even being watched on the crapper. The most amusing moments in the movie are Braeden trying to cooly negotiate with his computerized warden for a few small human privileges.

However, Forbin is a genius and manages to secure the most precious privilege of all: sex. He tells the computer that men require it for their emotional stability. Above all, sex must be allowed privacy. Under very strict conditions (spontaneity be damned), Colossus grants his creator scheduled, unmonitored bedroom time to unload his hard drive. Fortunately, the beautiful Dr. Cleo Markham (Susan Clark) is a computer technician on Forbin’s team willing to pose as his mistress for visits four times per week. In the hope of continuing to plot against Colossus, just prior to Forbin being put under the computer’s surveillance, he had arranged with Dr. Markham to cum and go as his outside world contact to secretly pass information between the sheets. Smooth, Forbin, smoooooth!

It is fun seeing previously platonic coworkers Forbin and Markham, under the surveillance of Colossus, trying to playact during their first “conjugal visit” as if they have already been involved in a long affair. This could become the world’s most nerve-wracking first date, yet Forbin and Markham seem to be trying to enjoy it and can appreciate the absurdity of this tricky situation that they have had to arrange.

That lightness of tone does not last for long. The consequences of Colossus and its demands escalate to domination of the whole world. I think the change from the original novel’s future setting to the 1970 film’s contemporary era is a wise one. This does not give the viewer any relief from serious consideration of a science fiction concept by relegating it to pure fantasy or a concern that can’t affect us anytime soon. Both nuclear weapons and computer technology were already prevalent and impacting the course of civilization.

Colossus: The Forbin Project refuses to stroke us with the comforting notion of humanity’s superiority (love, duty, spontaneity, creativity, and all that jazz) always winning out over unfeeling machine logic. The few people back in 1970 that watched this film didn’t walk out of the theater comforted by a neatly tied up Hollywood conclusion. They were still left to ponder the awful dilemma that the film’s story proposes. We have much less time today to ponder that dilemma. Oh hell, now I really need one of my perfect martinis!

THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973)

Director: Dan Curtis

Writer: Richard Matheson (based on characters created in Jeff Rice’s novel The Kolchak Papers)

Producer: Dan Curtis

Cast: Darren McGavin, Jo Ann Pflug, Simon Oakland, Scott Brady, Wally Cox, Margaret Hamilton, John Carradine, Nina Wayne, Al Lewis, Ivor Francis, Richard Anderson, Virginia Peters, Kate Murtagh, Diane Shalet, Anne Randall, Francoise Burnheim, Regina Parton.

Veteran reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) relocates in Seattle, Washington looking for work. He runs into the newspaper editor he used to work for in Las Vegas, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), and gets hired. As Kolchak’s luck would have it, he is soon investigating a series of murders just as strange as those he reported on back in Las Vegas. Women are being strangled by a killer who leaves traces of rotted flesh on their throats and extracts blood from the base of their skulls. Once again, Kolchak runs afoul of the authorities who don’t want to accept the incredible sounding facts he uncovers about the crimes.

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The Night Strangler is the equally entertaining sequel to the ratings blockbuster telefilm The Night Stalker (1972). Once again, the theme of journalism oppression by the authorities is as prevalent as the horror. Both Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson are involved again. This time producer Curtis also directs. Matheson’s script is an original story using the two characters of newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak and his exasperated editor, Tony Vincenzo, from the previous film that was based on a Jeff Rice novel. Rice, in turn, would write a novelization of this sequel film.

Some may feel that The Night Strangler is something of a rehash of The Night Stalker, but it has an energy all its own. It is loaded with funny and distinctive characters, most of whom Kolchak can’t help rubbing the wrong way. This leads to many bust-out-loud-laughing moments, yet the humor is never at the expense of the horror. We are still fully invested in the setting and situations Carl Kolchak is investigating.

Speaking of setting, that is often as important as character and motivation in a good horror tale. Like the earlier film, The Night Strangler takes place in a city not often dealt with, especially on television back in the ’70s. Seattle provides not only a different locale, but screenwriter Matheson delves into a strange-but-true bit of its history to add another layer of mystery and the bizarre to his story; it is an essential part of the killer’s character.

The main concept for this film’s menace seems to have a strong precedent in the Hammer Films horror movie The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), which was a remake of Paramount Pictures’ The Man in Half Moon Street (1945). Matheson’s story brings plenty of other elements into this film to keep it fresh and exciting, and his use of the Seattle Underground is a great idea.

First published in 1950, Richard Matheson was a very innovative and influential writer of fantasy stories. His horror tales often placed a menace in the contemporary settings and times of his readers. This made his stories more relatable and potentially unsettling for his audience. Matheson’s prolific output would also include screenplays for films and television. Many of the best-remembered episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone (1959–64) were scripted by Matheson. He wrote most of director Roger Corman’s film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories in the 1960s. In the ’70s, Matheson scripted two important movies that helped ensure popularity and respect for the burgeoning made-for-TV film medium: Duel (1971—based on Matheson’s short story and directed by Steven Spielberg in his feature film debut) and the first Carl Kolchak adventure, The Night Stalker.

Producer Dan Curtis admired Richard Matheson’s writing, but he had once offended the writer when offering an option to make a film based on a Matheson story. Matheson had resented such a low-figure bid for his work. That earlier Curtis production never materialized, but when the opportunity for Curtis to produce The Night Stalker arrived, he had a tough time overcoming Matheson’s grudge to get his “favorite writer” to do the screenplay. Once they got past that initial acrimony, Curtis and Matheson became cordial and would collaborate on more ’70s telefilms.

The Night Strangler repeats the narrative hook of the dedicated journalist tracking down another weird serial killer. Both writer Matheson and producer-director Curtis must have felt that more overt humor would keep the sequel from appearing formulaic. Matheson had already proven his merit writing for laughs in the horror comedies The Raven (1963) and The Comedy of Terrors (1963). While the first Kolchak film was laced with cynicism and humor, Matheson’s original screenplay for this sequel has even more amusing characters collaborating or clashing with our newshawk hero. Since all this humor arises from character quirks, egos, and conflicting agendas, it does not diminish the threat and intrigue of the horror being investigated. Dan Curtis’s direction still enhances the creep factor and delivers some fine jump scares.

Jo Ann Pflug co-stars as Carl Kolchak’s belly dancer friend and psychology undergrad, Louise Harper. She is another sexy and appealing lady that our reporter hero manages to hook up with, and she becomes much more involved in Kolchak’s investigations than his last girlfriend. Pflug would also star in the next year’s Curits-Matheson TV terror, Scream of the Wolf (1974).

Scott Brady plays Police Captain Roscoe Schubert, Kolchak’s most immediate obstacle to his latest journalistic crusade. Schubert actually seems quite reasonable if inflexible; however, he is driven to rage by Kolchak’s pushy antics.

Horror movie stalwart John Carradine is Llewellyn Crossbinder, the stuffy and domineering publisher of Kolchak’s newspaper, The Seattle Daily Chronicle.

Wally Cox (TV’s Mr. Peepers—1952–55) is The Chronicle’s meek and forgotten researcher, Titus Berry, and he proves to be a great help to Kolchak’s investigations.

Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz) has a cameo as the cranky Professor Crabwell who gives Kolchak some ideas about the killer’s motivation.

Al Lewis (Grandpa in The Munsters TV series—1964–66) portrays a vagrant living in the Seattle Underground.

Richard Anderson, best known as Oscar Goldman in both The Six Million Dollar Man (1973–78) and The Bionic Woman (1976–78) TV series, brings fanatical intensity and a touch of madness to his brief role of Dr. Richard Malcolm.

Dan Curtis’s frequent music composer, Robert Cobert, returns with a revamped theme from The Night Stalker. Cobert also contributes other jazzy and creepy pieces that perfectly suit this contemporary urban horror story.

This second Carl Kolchak television movie was also quite successful, and plans were made for a third film that was to be called The Night Killers. Richard Matheson collaborated on that script with William F. Nolan, another writer who would also provide creepy scripts for future Dan Curtis productions. That third Kolchak feature film was never made, but on Friday the 13th in September of 1974, Kolchak: The Night Stalker debuted as a twenty-episode television series. Curtis and Matheson were not involved in the weekly show, as they both felt that the Kolchak concept was played out. Darren McGavin would not only star in the ongoing series; he was also the co-producer. The series was a ratings flop in its day, but it was great, spooky fun and has developed a devoted cult following over the years. It influenced Chris Carter when he created the television series The X-Files (1993–2002, 2016–18).

The 1970s were the heyday of made-for-television movies. There were many in the horror genre that deserve to be made available again. Of them all, the Carl Kolchak adventures The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler are the most deserving of classic status. Those two films are all-time favorites of mine and must-see for true horror buffs.

THE NIGHT STALKER (1972)

Director: John Llewellyn Moxey

Writers: Richard Matheson, Max Hodge (uncredited), adapting the novel The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice

Producer: Dan Curtis

Cast: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Claude Akins, Charles McGraw, Kent Smith, Barry Atwater, Larry Linville, Jordan Rhodes, Elisha Cook, Jr., Stanley Adams, (and uncredited cast members) Virginia Gregg. Patty Elder, Irene Cagen, Don Ames, Buddy Joe Hooker, Peggy Rea, Edward Faulkner, Rudy Doucette, Sig Frohlich, Eddie Garrett, Monty O’Grady, Mark Russell, George Simmons, Al Roberts

Las Vegas newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) is assigned to cover the murders of various women found drained of their blood. The killer (Barry Atwater) proves to be elusive and dangerous, even to the police that try capturing him. Kolchak constantly grates on the local authorities in his pursuit of the truth. When the truth Kolchak wants to report suggests that the murderer may be a supernatural vampire, he also encounters resistance from his editor (Simon Oakland). Yet his reporter’s zeal and ambition drive Kolchak onward, regardless of the risks.

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The early 1970s seemed to be an era hellbent on resurrecting the vampire as a modern-day, movie menace. Films like Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and producer-director Dan Curtis’s House of Dark Shadows (1970), his feature film adaptation of his Dark Shadows television series (1966-71), opened the decade with contemporary spins on that Gothic horror.

1972's telefilm The Night Stalker is one of the finest horror films ever made. Great writing, characters, performances, and direction all contribute to the excellence of this production. It is the concept that really energizes the whole thing: a modern-day metropolis and its officials having to deal with the possibility of a fiend from folklore being responsible for the serial killings making headlines. The Night Stalker dumps what seems to be a classic vampire right into the lap of 1970s Las Vegas. There is no way to explain the menace rationally, and the authorities refuse to acknowledge it for fear of not only creating panic, but also to protect business interests (gambling and tourism), as well as law enforcement reputations that may look foolish admitting to the existence of a “real live vampire.” 

The screenplay, by fantasy writer Richard Matheson, is based on the then-unpublished novel The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice. There has been a bit of speculation about the originality of Rice’s vampire-in-a-modern-day-American-city premise, as the 1965 novel Progeny of the Adder by Leslie H. Whitten also dealt with a similar situation in Washington, D.C., from the perspective of the police rather than a newspaper reporter. Rice claimed not to be familiar with the earlier work when he wrote his novel, and there are many instances where similar ideas occur to different creators. As a matter of fact, long before the Whitten and Rice works, the king of all vampire tales, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, took place in what was then modern-day London, England. For that matter, modern-day London was also the setting for the 1931 film version of Dracula as well as the 1943 film The Return of the Vampire, both starring cinema’s vampire icon Bela Lugosi. 1958’s movie The Return of Dracula had the famous bloodsucker relocating in a small, modern-day, California town. 1970’s Count Yorga, Vampire also had its title fiend settling into modern California. All the previous works mention that modern society does not readily accept the existence of the vampire, yet the Jeff Rice novel and its film adaptation really stress the corruption of the establishment being the main obstacle to dealing with the supernatural menace.

This was the first collaboration between writer Richard Matheson and producer Dan Curtis. Matheson had written many fantasy and horror stories in prose and screenplays for the cinema and television. Curtis had produced the 1968 television adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and was the creator of the daytime television Gothic soap opera series Dark Shadows. Curtis would later direct, as well as produce, more Matheson-scripted films. Anything these two guys were involved in is worth checking out.

Director John Llewellyn Moxey had directed the British horror film The City of the Dead (1960), aka Horror Hotel. That was the first horror production by the producing team of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, who would later helm Amicus Productions. That company would become Hammer Films’ chief British rival in horror film production during the ’60s and ’70s. Llewellyn would later move to America and direct a lot of television work, including more suspense and horror projects.

Producer Dan Curtis’s go-to-guy for his soundtracks, Robert Cobert, composed a score for The Night Stalker that is full of energy and eeriness with a contemporary urban feel. It puzzles me how Kolchak’s creator, author Jeff Rice, could have hated this film’s fantastic music. I think Cobert’s music is perfect.

While working as a painter for Columbia Pictures, Darren McGavin’s long acting career began when he managed to get hired for a bit part in Columbia’s 1945 film A Song to Remember. He then moved to New York City to study acting and performed in stage productions while also appearing in live-television dramas. By the mid ’50s, McGavin was starting to get featured roles in movies while he was becoming a television mainstay. In addition to guest-starring roles in episodes of many television programs, he also headlined several series: Casey, Crime Photographer (1951–52),  Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1958–59), Riverboat (1959–61), and The Outsider (1968–69).

When Darren McGavin portrayed news reporter Carl Kolchak, he created one of my all-time favorite heroes. He is likable but irascible. His goal to report the truth is both noble and self-serving. He is not infallible or fearless, yet he presses on. He is a very human and, ultimately, tragic character. Carl Kolchak has certainly become Darren McGavin’s signature role, perhaps only to be rivaled by his “the Old Man” character, young Ralphie’s father in the yuletide classic A Christmas Story (1983).

Ralph Meeker plays Bernie Jenks, Kolchak’s pal at the FBI. It is fun to see both McGavin and Meeker teaming up in this film, as both actors had portrayed that most hard-boiled of private detectives, Mike Hammer. Meeker portrayed Hammer in one of the greatest film noir flicks, Kiss Me Deadly (1955), three years before McGavin played another interpretation of that character in the syndicated television series.

It is suggested that Kolchak’s girlfriend, Gail Foster, is an escort or hooker, which was pretty daring for the hero’s love interest of a 1972 TV-movie. As Gail, the adorable Carol Lynley makes us root even more for a happy ending to play out for our reporter hero.

Simon Oakland, as Kolchak’s editor Anthony Vincenzo, establishes the ongoing friction between the two characters that would become ever more entertaining in the sequel to this film and the twenty episodes of the weekly ABC television series that followed.

There are plenty of other memorable character actors that provide great support such as Larry Linville, Charles McGraw, Kent Smith, Claude Akins, and Elisha Cook, Jr. As in all the Kolchak stories that would follow, these other characters provide a lot of interesting and often humorous conflicts with Carl Kolchak.

Of course, the greatest conflict is created by “suspect” (as the Las Vegas establishment would have it) Janos Skorzeny. Without a single word of dialogue, Barry Atwater portrays the creepiest vampire ever. FBI man Bernie Jenks provides the only information known about this character during a press conference. That makes us relate to the killer in the same way that we would if he and his crimes were being reported to us through the news media. This is the same way we are made aware of all too many other real-life killers among us. It is this sense of matter-of-fact reality that enables The Night Stalker to get under our skin.

I was just a kid tuning in the boob tube on the cold winter night of January 11, 1972 when I first saw The Night Stalker. I knew nothing about it beforehand, but this little ghoul realized he had hit the jackpot during the second scene when the leggiest beauty (Patty Elder) he had ever ogled met her grisly fate in a Las Vegas alley. The Night Stalker made television ratings history and proved that sometimes something can be enormously popular because it deserves to be.

GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK (1978)

Director: Ted Post

Writers: Joseph Fraley, Bruce Cohn, Mark Medoff

Producer: Allan F. Bodoh

Cast: Chuck Norris, Anne Archer, James Franciscus, Lloyd Haynes, Dana Andrews, Jim Backus, Soon-Tek Oh, Lawrence P. Casey, Joe Bennett, Jerry Douglas, Anthony Mannino, Stack Pierce, David Starwalt, Michael Payne, Benjamin J. Perry, Michael Stark, Pat E. Johnson, Virginia Wing, James Bacon, Kathy McCullen, Aaron Norris, Don Pike

In 1973, a special unit of U.S. commandos called the Black Tigers, led by Major John T. Booker (Chuck Norris), is sent into Vietnam to rescue American POWs. The team finds no one to rescue from the prison camp and is soon under attack. Their radio call for pickup by choppers is ignored. The Black Tigers realize they have been set up and abandoned, so they must make it out of Vietnam on their own. Five years later in Los Angeles, California, Booker is now teaching political science at UCLA. A reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) approaches him with information regarding his doomed Black Tigers mission. Booker is reluctant to revisit his past until he and other surviving members of the Black Tigers are being targeted for assassination.

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Due to the recent passing of action movie icon Chuck Norris, I felt the urge to revisit the film that first made me aware of the martial arts champion-turned-actor. Its trailer featured Norris’s John T. Booker character jumping over the front of an onrushing automobile to dropkick through its windshield. I am convinced that stunt is what sold the public on this movie and made Good Guys Wear Black a box office hit. As cool as that powerful promo was, I did not see this film until Norris had become a household name and I had already seen several of his later ass-kicking epics.

The six-time middleweight world karate champion had been making appearances in small roles for films and television requiring his martial arts expertise ever since his blink-and-you-miss-him bit in the Dean Martin-starring Matt Helm spy flick The Wrecking Crew (1968). Norris got some real attention when he played martial arts star Bruce Lee’s opponent in a fight to the death in The Way of the Dragon (1972), aka Return of the Dragon. After encouragement from one of his martial arts pupils, actor Steve McQueen, Norris started to seriously pursue film acting. 1977’s Breaker! Breaker! was Norris’s lead actor debut. Released at the height of America’s CB craze, it cast Norris in the role of a trucker facing off against a small town’s corrupt law enforcement. The film was generally dismissed by the critics (a common attitude toward most of Norris’s films), but it managed to be profitable. It was a notable film credit for Norris that gave him the opportunity to again play the lead in his next film, Good Guys Wear Black.

Chuck Norris was just as determined to succeed in films as he was in his karate matches. The idea behind the film’s story was Norris’s. He worked out the story with another of his martial arts pupils and kept pitching the project to different producers. Wisely, Norris wanted to star in a plot-driven movie that was not just a string of martial arts fights. After plenty of rejections all over Hollywood, he finally convinced a producer to greenlight the project when Norris reasoned that, even if only half of the Norris karate fans showed up to see his movie, the low-budget film would be profitable.

Good Guys Wear Black is an action film that is also a political thriller. As such, I find its plot more intriguing than most action films. Norris’s John T. Booker is not looking for trouble or associated with the military anymore. He is trying to move beyond his wartime past and live a peaceful life as a civilian. During his lecture to his political science students, Booker expresses disapproval of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. One can only assume the setup that doomed the POW rescue mission Booker led has given him an attitude with more nuance than “just follow orders.” Yet, despite the betrayal of his last Black Tigers team mission, he refuses to obsess about the awful incident he survived and won’t let bitterness spoil his new life.

Like many political thrillers, Good Guys Wear Black has a strong streak of anti-establishment sentiment. It condemns those in the government whose machinations are used to pursue their selfish goals and cover their tracks. The theme of political expedience sacrificing peoples’ lives is a powerful one. Ultimately, the film does not glamorize war and stresses that soldiers are not just expendable assets.

The nefarious plot based in political corruption works well to serve a low-budget film. Individually assassinating various former commandos amid their postwar civilian lives is meant to be lowkey. It is not the sort of extravagant operation that draws a lot of public attention in the story. This somewhat stealthy tactic is easier for a budget-conscious film to depict.

With director Ted Post at the helm, this project was in good hands. Post had an extensive background in television and film projects. Notably, he had twice directed Clint Eastwood in the Western Hang ‘Em High (1968) and the second Dirty Harry film, Magnum Force (1973). Post was experienced enough to know how to be sure that the story was driven by characters’ motivations and could deal with many production challenges of time and budget. However, Post has stated that, due to a very tight schedule, he considered Good Guys Wear Black an unfinished film; he wanted more time to further develop the script.

The film’s only deficiency that has always troubled me is the night shooting during the Black Tigers’ Vietnam mission early in the story. Very poor image quality mars what should have been some exciting action. I have quadruple-dipped for this flick in various formats over the years, and the footage for that sequence always seems underlit and poorly focused. Ted Post was a seasoned pro who certainly knew what he was doing, so perhaps something went awry in the sequence’s processing at the film lab.

While this is an early role for Chuck Norris, I think he does just fine. His acting chops may not be as adept as his chopsocky skills, but he makes for an appealing and capable protagonist. It is not only his good looks and fancy footwork that have made him an enduring action star. Norris has a presence of calm determination, no doubt a result of his martial arts discipline. Norris does not pose and strut. He projects the confidence of an accomplished person with nothing to prove. That makes him a believable hero.

The always adorable Anne Archer co-stars as the beautiful and enigmatic reporter Margaret. We never learn Margaret’s last name, and she knows one helluva lot about those secret Black Tiger commandos. While she may seem to be just determined to follow up on an intriguing lead from an unnamed source in Washington, D.C., Booker is a little suspicious. He wonders if Margaret’s only motivation is journalistic ambition. This ambiguity adds a bit more paranoia to the narrative. Nevertheless, her vague backstory does not keep John T. Booker from accepting her carnal advances, and I can’t say I blame him. Afterall, how can anyone who looks like Anne Archer not be a nice girl? Yeah, if she’s really a femme fatale, a dope like me would be dead meat walking when she's around.

Ironically, the most trustworthy ally Booker has is Murray Saunders (Lloyd Haynes), the CIA operative that sent the Black Tigers on their ill-fated mission in 1973. Five years later, Saunders has learned of a plot to kill the surviving members of the mission and that he may also be a target. He provides some stoic humor and helps Booker confront the threat they are under.

James Franciscus is great as the charismatic and calculating Senator Conrad Morgan who aspires to be the U.S. Secretary of State. He has the movie-idol looks and razor-sharp diction that command attention. This guy is the perfect statesman who delivers every line with dynamic verve. Franciscus makes a powerful impression with his limited screen time, and his dialogue delivery provides as much energy as Norris’s karate moves.

Landing seasoned talents for low-budget films can elevate them beyond mere exploitation. Case in point: Here in a small and important role is veteran actor Dana Andrews as U.S. Under Secretary of State Edgar Harolds. His final scene is a chunk of exposition that Andrews makes interesting, even a bit touching, with his wry and melancholy delivery as he laps up the booze.

Back in 1978, people may have been expecting this film to only provide nonstop chopsocky action. Today, people expect every action movie to feature gigantic budgets and ever more outlandish CGI-tweaked stunts that pacify rather than involve ever-shortening attention spans. I find Good Guys Wear Black positively refreshing since it stoops to neither generation’s expectations. It has nothing revolutionary going on. It is just meant to give us a hero beset by a political plot that requires him to occasionally kick some ass as he tries to save his own. Yet it helped define the action movie genre that would soon dominate the 1980s and launched the film fame of one of its preeminent stars, Chuck Norris.