The Born Losers (1967) on Netflix
PG19671h 54mActionCrimeDramaThriller
In Big Rock, a California beach town, a traffic accident turns violent when the Born Losers motorcycle club beats a man. Billy Jack, a half-Native American Vietnam veteran, intervenes.
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- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb5.9/103,318 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Billy Jack, a half-Native American Green Beret veteran of the Vietnam War, keeps to himself in the mountains above the California coast. A drive into the beach town of Big Rock puts him in the middle of a street beating: after a traffic accident, the Born Losers motorcycle gang, led by Danny Carmody, attacks a man while bystanders look away. Billy Jack pulls the man out of the fight, and the police arrest him for the rifle he used to stop it. A judge fines him a thousand dollars, more than the bikers pay for the assault. The gang turns its attention to Vicky Barrington, a young woman in town, while the local lawmen treat Billy with suspicion.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Born Losers (1967)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tom Laughlin introduced the character of Billy Jack in a quickly written script built to ride the 1960s motorcycle-gang movie trend, and the story was based on a real 1964 incident in which Hells Angels members were arrested for raping two teenage girls in Monterey, California.
- Tom Laughlin ran out of money during post-production on The Born Losers; he showed the unfinished film to American International Pictures, which bought out the original investors and gave him $300,000 to finish it.
- Filming The Born Losers was completed in just three weeks on an operating budget of $160,000, and to cut costs a stunt of a biker crashing into a pond was taken from American International's 1966 comedy The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.
- The Born Losers was the highest-grossing American International Pictures release until 1979, when The Amityville Horror came out and surpassed it.
- In Mexico City the film set a record for the longest run of a 35mm film, playing at the Teatro Metropólitan for more than 26 weeks and selling over 500,000 tickets.
- The Born Losers caused a sensation in Hungary, filling the Pushkin Cinema in Budapest and other cinemas in the capital, and a month later the film was banned in Hungary.
- American International Pictures ads proclaiming "THE ORIGINAL BILLY JACK IS BACK!" brought a lawsuit from Tom Laughlin, and afterwards all newspaper advertising had to carry the disclaimer "This is a Re-Release" so viewers would know the film was not Billy Jack.
- The bikers' lair seen in the film, in Playa del Rey, California, was once owned by silent film star Mae Murray.
