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 Hanes, 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 are 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 Haines), 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.

THIRTEEN WOMEN (1932)

Director: George Archainbaud

Writers: Bartlett Cormack, Samuel Orniz adapting the 1932 novel by Tiffany Thayer

Producer: David O. Selznick

Cast: Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond, Peg Entwistle, Mary Duncan, C. Henry Gordon, Kay Johnson, Florence Eldridge, Harriet Hagman, Edward Pawley, Wally Albright, Blanche Friderici, Lloyd Ingraham (uncredited), Phyllis Fraser (cut scenes), Betty Furness (cut scenes)

Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) is a Eurasian beauty with the mystic ability to force her will on others. She has controlled an astrologer, the Swami Yogadachi (C. Henry Gordon). He had made horoscopes for twelve sorority sisters who were Ursula Georgi’s American finishing school classmates. Georgi forges new horoscopes from the swami and sends them to each of the sorority sisters. Each of the mailed horoscopes now predicts doom and seems to compel each of the women receiving them to perform self-destructive acts.

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Myrna Loy probably found her greatest film fame as half of the crime-solving couple of Nick (William Powell) and Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934) and its five sequels. Prior to that, she had been fighting typecasting as exotic, non-American vamps. Her most notorious role was as the depraved daughter of Boris Karloff’s diabolical criminal genius Dr. Fu Manchu in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Just one month before that film’s release, Loy appeared as the sensuous and sinister Eurasian Ursula Georgi in Thirteen Women.

Loy’s performance is restrained, yet she commands every scene she is in; you just can’t take your eyes off her. Her lovely features are suitably enhanced with exotic eye makeup that suggests her mysticism and hypnotic power. During the film’s climax when she is venting about her backstory and grievance that provide her murderous motive, Loy’s performance still maintains enough dignity that we can empathize a bit with her.

At first glance, it may seem that this is just another foreign stereotype of Asian villainy being set up as a film baddie. But this movie eventually reveals how the casual cruelty of American attitudes about class and race cause this foreigner to strike back. That oh so American virtue of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps did not spare the Ursula Georgi character from being ostracized due to the desperate circumstances of her impoverished background and “half breed” status.

That final vendetta reveal, as well as the victims-picked-off-one-by-one storyline, is why Thirteen Women has been cited as a precursor to the slasher film. Many vengeance-seeking slasher villains are revealed to have suffered a trauma dealt to them at a young age or in a school setting. But Loy’s Ursula Georgi doesn’t need to bloody her pretty hands when the weapon she wields is the power of suggestion.

The application of that deadly control is rather vague. It seems that the sorority sisters who are targets for Ursula Georgi’s rage are all susceptible to suggestion by the horoscopes of the Swami Yogadachi predicting their fates. Yogadachi’s horoscopes originally foretold happiness for the sorority sisters. As the swami’s secretary, Georgi writes new horoscopes foretelling doom that she sends in his name to her hated former classmates. Due to their faith in the swami’s horoscopes, these women are compelled to behave in ways that assure their downfall. The Swami Yogadachi is one mystic foreigner who, in turn, is under the sway of another, the hypnotically alluring Ursula Georgi. Her mysticism is weaponizing his. We soon meet another man (Edward Pawley) who is practically Georgi’s henchman because he is also similarly smitten with her. Georgi can also command people to instantly fall asleep. Originally, this film tested poorly with audiences and later had 14 minutes cut from it. Perhaps the missing footage explained more about how all this occultism works. It is just as likely that the filmmakers did not bother. American filmgoers would accept mysterious foreigners from exotic places having strange abilities Westerners just can’t understand. However, all this inexplicable mysticism does enable a fitting irony and ambiguity for the film’s climax.

Irene Dunne distinguished herself in screwball comedies and had been nominated for an Oscar five times without winning. She earned her first nomination in her second film, the 1931 Western Cimmaron. The following year Dunne is starring in Thirteen Women as wealthy single mother Laura Stanhope. Of all the victims of Ursula Georgi’s wrath, Laura earns the most of our sympathy as Georgi targets her young son (Wally Albright) for death. Despite this stress, Dunne’s Laura Stanhope seems the most levelheaded of all the potential horoscope victims.

Ricardo Cortez plays the detective investigating the strange series of deaths inflicted by Ursula Georgi. As Police Sergeant Barry Clive, he meets Dunne’s Laura Stanhope, and something tells me he likes what he sees. Cortez had co-starred with Dunne earlier the same year in the drama Symphony of Six Million (1932). He already had an extensive filmography and had played detective Sam Spade in 1931’s The Maltese Falcon, the first film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel.

This strange thriller’s acts of self-destruction were tragically prescient for an actress portraying one of the doomed sorority sisters. In Thirteen Women, stage performer Peg Entwistle had her only film credit playing the small role of Hazel Clay Cousins. Unfortunately, just one month before the film's premiere, Peg Entwistle would achieve her greatest fame by committing suicide leaping off the top of the famous Hollywoodland sign. Her motive for this tragic act is left unclear by her cryptic suicide note. Such a sad fate for an actress whose stage performance had inspired none other than the great Bette Davis to pursue acting.

If one attributes any significance to karma or superstition, it may come as no surprise that Thirteen Women was unlucky at the box office. In retrospect, this weird film is appreciated as another pre-Code curiosity that was edgy, unconventional, perhaps eventually influential, and now seems to have a reputation verging on cult status.

THE DETECTIVE (1968)

Director: Gordon Douglas

Writers: Abby Mann adapting Roderick Thorp’s 1966 novel

Producer: Aaron Rosenberg

Cast: Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, William Windom, Jacqueline Bisset, Jack Klugman, Tony Musante, Robert Duvall, Al Freeman, Jr., Lloyd Bochner, Tom Atkins, Horace McMahon, Pat Henry, Patrick McVey, Dixie Marquis, Renée Taylor, James Inman, Sugar Ray Robinson, George Plimpton, Bette Midler (uncredited), Joe Santos (uncredited)

New York City police detective Sgt. Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) is investigating the murder and mutilation of Teddy Leikman (James Inman). Since the victim was the son of a politically influential local businessman, the case attracts a lot of attention. Leland is prodded by his captain (Horace McMahon) and the media to solve the case quickly. Leland’s life becomes endangered as his investigation threatens to expose more than just the murderer.

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The Detective is the first flick this film junkie had seen starring Frank Sinatra. His performance really made me appreciate that he was more than just that famous singer for an older generation. Sinatra’s assured acting style really earned my respect. As a result, Ol’ Blue Eyes was finally on my radar, and I began to take notice of some of those standards of his that are the perfect musical complement to my martinis. One vice leads to another and another…

The Detective was a far cry from the Rat Pack-attitude-flaunting flicks that Frank Sinatra often starred in during the 1960s. This crime drama may be buoyed by the Sinatra presence but is anchored in plenty of heavy themes: individual and civic integrity; homosexuality; law enforcement prejudice, corruption and fascism; class division; and psychological issues causing relationship dysfunction.

In contrast to his free-and-easy mystery romps as Florida-based private eye Tony Rome (1967’s Tony Rome and 1968’s Lady in Cement), Frank Sinatra investigates Big Apple crime in this rather downbeat police procedural. The role of the tough, principled detective Joe Leland suits Sinatra’s chutzpah perfectly. Leland’s ethics and idealism are constantly offended by his coworkers and society. He even chastises himself at one point when he feels that he sought an easy solution to a case that enabled his promotion.

Lee Remick stars opposite Sinatra as his love interest, Karen Wagner. It is almost immediately established that Joe Leland and Karen Wagner are two people with very different backgrounds and temperaments. Despite their commitment to each other, their relationship is complicated by Karen’s ongoing psychological issues. Sinatra’s frequent director in the ’60s, Gordon Douglas, often shoots closeups of Sinatra and Remick looking directly into the camera as their characters are having intimate conversations with each other. One would think that this indicates a bond of direct honesty between this couple apart from the sordid world that Detective Leland deals with. However, these closeups often create a sense of confrontational uneasiness as we are not sure these two characters are truly compatible.

There are many other familiar faces cast as Sinatra’s fellow detectives. Jack Klugman plays Leland’s friend Dave Schoenstein. Ralph Meeker and Robert Duvall are absolutely thuggish as Curran and Nestor. Alan Freeman, Jr., as Leland’s new, young partner, Robbie Loughlin, provides a surprise that makes Leland confront his own ambition.

Tony Musante has a featured role as murder suspect Felix Tesla. He is one pathetic knot of psychotic misery.

In his very first film role, Tom Atkins plays the trigger-happy, young cop being grilled by Leland. Atkins would become a horror film favorite in the 1980s for his work in such films as The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), and Night of the Creeps (1986).

Jacqueline Bisset plays one of three important roles that don’t matter until over halfway through the film. Her Norma MacIver approaches Leland to investigate the apparent suicide of her husband. She also provides another potential love interest for Joe Leland.

Lloyd Bochner was a frequent guest-star on many ’60s and ’70s television series and appeared with Sinatra in the previous year’s Tony Rome film. Bochner provides his typically smooth and shifty presence as psychiatrist Dr. Roberts.

The character of Colin MacIver, Norma’s late husband, is played by William Windom, who appears only in a lengthy flashback. The ubiquitous Windom began performing on television in 1949 and never stopped. He also acted in an enormous number of movie and theater productions. Windom may be best known for his television roles as the unfortunate Commodore Matt Decker in the original Star Trek series (1966–69) episode “The Doomsday Machine” and for his recurring role as Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder, She Wrote (1984–96).

The Detective could have been an enormously significant movie in action film history. While it is more of a crime drama than an action thriller, it was probably Sinatra’s portrayal of a tough, idealistic police detective that resulted in him being offered the title role of that 1971 classic Dirty Harry. Of course, Sinatra passed on it, and Clint Eastwood became cinema’s most famous cop. Since The Detective film was based on Roderick Thorp’s novel, when his 1979 sequel novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, was adapted as the 1988 film Die Hard, Sinatra was offered the starring role. Again, Sinatra passed on a role that led to another hit action film series. The Joe Leland character was changed from a retired police detective to a younger, still-working police detective named John McClane played by Bruce Willis.

The Detective was released just months before the Motion Picture Association of America rating system began. It is a clear indication of the medium’s new direction using edgier, adult content reflecting the increasing turbulence of the times and questioning the merit in society’s classes and institutions. All the sordid compromises and resulting complications in an unethical society make the story’s murder and its solution seem to be almost beside the point. In this messy and compromised world, Sinatra’s Joe Leland weathers disappointments and eventually must change his tactics to keep making a difference. This film does not offer a tidy and triumphant climax but tells us that the good fight must continue to be waged and that ethics still matter.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964)

Director: Richard Lester

Writer: Alun Owen

Producer: Walter Shenson

Cast: The Beatles as themselves (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr), Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, John Junkin, Victor Spinetti, Richard Vernon, Anna Quayle, Deryck Guyler, David Janson (as David Jaxon), Edward Malin, Robin Ray, Lionel Blair, Alison Seebohm, (and uncredited cast) Margaret Nolan, Pattie Boyd, Prudence Bury, Kenneth Haigh, Julian Holloway, Michael Trubshawe, John Bluthal, Jeremy Lloyd, Charlotte Rampling, Marianne Stone, Phil Collins, Derek Nimmo, Douglas Millings, David Langton, Terry Hooper

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are the four rock ’n’ roll musicians from Liverpool, England who form the wildly popular band called the Beatles. The irreverent young men are accompanied by Paul’s sly and unruly grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell). The Beatles’ manager, Norm (Norman Rossington), has his hands full ensuring that the rambunctious lads arrive at the television studio on time to prepare for their live broadcast performance.

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The Beatles were the most fab example of catching lightning in a bottle. Inspired by the American rock ’n’ roll acts of the late 1950s, those Liverpool lads from humble backgrounds honed their talents playing for small music venues in Liverpool, England; Hamburg, Germany; and Scotland. In 1961, Liverpool record-store owner and music columnist Brian Epstein noticed the Beatles’ talent, charisma, and growing popularity. Epstein took an interest in managing the Beatles and made some savvy decisions honing the band’s image into something appealing and distinctive — hence the mop top haircuts, tailored suits, and pointy-toed Cuban boots. Once record producer George Martin began to hone their sound in their earliest recording sessions, the stage was set for the four-of-a-kind talents of John, Paul, George, and Ringo to enrapture the world with Beatlemania.

Timing was also a factor in the smash success of the Beatles. During the height of the Cold War and England’s post-World War II malaise, the Beatles were a blast of fresh air with a great new sound. They were true originals whose music invigorated their young generation with independence and hope.

The cultural phenomenon of Beatlemania is perfectly distilled down to 87 minutes of celluloid called A Hard Day’s Night. Even those who are too young to have witnessed the Fab Four’s worldwide explosion of popularity can immediately catch that thrill watching this wonderful film. This is not a documentary or a trite dramatic narrative framing a rock ’n’ roll act. The filmmakers made the bold decision to have the Beatles be the main characters in a surreal musical comedy that critics noted was reminiscent of the Marx Brothers. That was a very perceptive reaction as this film is truly the ’60s youth equivalent of a Marx Brothers movie; we see the witty and talented Beatles’ cool exuberance and youthful independence disrupt the establishment. Between their comedic bouts of teasing the older generation and ducking their manager-dictated responsibilities, the Beatles get it together for performances of their now-classic songs. All of this is tossed off with such breezy cinematic verve that anyone not grooving to this must not have a pulse. You simply can’t be in a bad mood for long watching A Hard Day’s Night.

Initially, the Beatles were reluctant to make a film. Other rock ’n’ roll stars appearing in films were either just trotted out during a story to provide musical interludes or were made to play other musically talented characters (à la Elvis Presley). The filmmakers were smart enough to realize that the audience for a film with the Beatles wanted the film to be just about the Beatles. This also meant that the Fab Four could just be themselves, Liverpool accents and all. To make the non-actor stars of the film comfortable, screenwriter Alun Owen spent plenty of time with the band to write dialogue that suited them. Some of the lines were actual quotes of witticisms the Beatles had made in interviews or in banter among themselves.

Perhaps the most famous Beatles remark would be Ringo Starr’s malapropism referring to a long Beatles concert performance as “a hard day’s night.” That was John Lennon’s inspiration for the film’s fantastic opening credits music he crafted with Paul McCartney overnight when the film’s producer decided a new and original Beatles tune was needed as a title song. That mighty, first guitar chord by George Harrison blasts off the coolest rock ’n’ roll romp of all time.

What follows is a “day in the life” of the Beatles on the go being chased by adoring fans, frustrating their stressed manager, stepping out to party, and eventually preparing to perform for their television broadcast. This could all come across as a self-indulgent ego trip by the Beatles, yet they approach everything and each other with irreverent wit. This movie really clicks because the Beatles are having a lark with this film between their great songs.

There is just enough character conflict between the Beatles, and the various establishment figures they encounter, to create comic moments. Yet, this never becomes mean-spirited, since the Beatles refuse to take anything seriously. Their first moment of youth vs. elder impudence occurs when they sense a stuffy fellow train passenger’s (Richard Vernon) immediate disapproval of them. This amusing scene establishes the Beatles as champions of the younger generation’s independence.

The most direct generational conflict is caused by Paul’s grandfather John. As played by the hilarious Wilfrid Brambell, he is an unrepentant troublemaker always conniving to misbehave and avoid Paul’s supervision. It is an interesting dichotomy having one of the young, rebellious Beatles still trying to be responsible for an even more immature elder. Whether Paul’s grandfather is trying to sneak off to gamble in the company of a buxom blonde (Margaret Nolan), encourage rebellion in the hapless Ringo, or exploit the fame of his grandson’s band for a quick buck, this funny display of crotchety sociopathy demonstrates that irresponsibility is not only indulged in by the young.

Much has been made of director Richard Lester’s cinéma vérité technique in A Hard Day’s Night. This seemingly improvisational approach, often using handheld cameras and unusual perspectives for the crisp black-and-white photography, trades gloss and glamor for grit and spontaneity that mirrors the energy and honesty of the Beatles. It also suits the occasional surreal touches of humor and musical set pieces. When Lester’s work in this film had been described as the father of MTV, he quipped that he wanted a paternity test. However, you can see this is a perfectly valid assessment when you watch the surreal scenes of the Beatles suddenly breaking into a performance of “I Should Have Known Better” in the baggage car of a train they are traveling on or clowning around on an athletic field while “Can’t Buy Me Love” is rocking the soundtrack. Lester truly kicked off the music video medium with this film.

The Beatles were the perfect combo of talent appearing at just the right time for a world that didn’t know they needed them until they heard them. We may never know their like again, but we can still cherish their many recordings and feel the excitement of Beatlemania watching A Hard Day’s Night. It brings us some of the joy and solace we need just as much today as they did back in 1964.