BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA
Six-time, undefeated world karate champion
Chuck Norris made his film debut in 1972’s Way
of the Dragon; a marvelous movie in which Norris played a villainous
character who battled the immortal Bruce Lee in a scene that is now considered
to be one of the greatest cinematic
fights of all time. In 1974, Norris did another villainous turn in the low-budget
martial arts film Slaughter in San
Francisco by portraying a powerful drug lord. He would then go on to
headline 1977’s Breaker! Breaker!
wherein he played the hero for the first time. When the higher budgeted and
more ambitious Good Guys Wear Black
was released the following year, it scored big and suddenly everyone took
notice of this rising new talent.
Vietnam vet John T. Booker (Norris) is now a
political science professor at UCLA who gets wind of the fact that someone very
powerful is killing off the remaining members of his old Special Forces team,
the Black Tigers. With the help of a young reporter named Margaret (Anne
Archer), Booker attempts to find out who’s responsible for the slaughter while
simultaneously trying to stay alive.
Very well-directed by Ted Post, Good Guys Wear Black was written by
Bruce Cohn and Mark Medoff (from a story by Joseph Fraley),and released by
American Cinema Releasing on June 2, 1978. The entertaining action film, which Norris
considers his breakthrough movie, is a post-Watergate/ post-Vietnam story, but,
in some spots, also feels very much like a James Bond film.
Much has been said about Norris’s performance
in this film. Norris himself doesn’t love his acting in this one. After Good Guys was released, Steve McQueen,
who was one of Norris’s karate students at the time, told the rising star that
it would be better if, from now on, he let some of the character actors handle
the heavy exposition while, much like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson, Chuck
only uttered the most important lines. Great advice, but still, I don’t think Norris’s
performance in this film is nearly as bad as everyone has said and he has nothing
to be ashamed of. If you watch his movies in order of release, you will see an
actor who worked hard on his craft and improved with each film.
To help support Norris in this early film
effort, the filmmakers cast Good Guys
Wear Black with an amazing array of acting talent the likes of Anne Archer,
James Franciscus, Lloyd Haynes, Dana Andrews, Jim Backus, Lawrence P. Casey and
Soon-Tek Oh (who would later appear in two more Chuck Norris films). The film
also features 9th degree black belt Pat E. Johnson, the first screen
appearance of Chuck’s brother (and fight choreographer) Aaron Norris, and a
cool musical score by composer Craig Safan.
Good Guys Wear Black has been released on
Blu-ray in anamorphic (1.85:1) widescreen from a brand new 2K transfer. The Region
1 disc also contains an interesting audio commentary by action film historians Mike
Leeder and Arne Venema, the featurette “The Making of Good Guys Wear Black”, an interview with director Ted Post, the
original theatrical trailer, reversible sleeve artwork, TV spot and several radio spots. There are also
trailers for five other Chuck Norris films as well as the trailer for Narrow Margin which stars Anne Archer.
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Ernie Magnotta is the author of "Halloween: The Changing Shape of an Iconic Series". Click here to order from Amazon