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.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

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.