Billy Jack (1971)

Billy Jack movie storyline. The half-breed Billy Jack lives in an Indian reservation protecting the Indians, the stallions and the students of the Freedom School, a peaceful art school run by Jean Roberts and where the students can choose their own destiny. When the teenage daughter of the corrupt Deputy Mike, Barbara, is retrieved by Sheriff Cole, she tells that she is pregnant and her father beats her up.

Sheriff Cole and the local doctor ask Jean if she can lodge Barbara, she welcomes the traumatized teenager. But her father, together with the corrupt and powerful Mr. Stuart Posner and his coward son Bernard Posner, initiate a campaign to damage the school and humiliate the students while Billy Jack fight to control his temper against the bigotry and violence of the locals. But when he discovers what Bernard did to Jean, he has to use violence to defeat evil.

Billy Jack is a 1971 American action drama independent film, the second of four films centering on a character of the same name which began with the movie The Born Losers (1967), played by Tom Laughlin, who directed and co-wrote the script. Filming began in Prescott, Arizona, in the fall of 1969, but the movie was not completed until 1971. American International Pictures pulled out, halting filming. 20th Century Fox came forward and filming eventually resumed but when that studio refused to distribute the film, Warner Bros. stepped forward.

Still, the film lacked distribution, so Laughlin booked it into theaters himself in 1971. The film grossed $10 million in its initial run, but eventually added close to $50 million in its re-release, with distribution supervised by Laughlin.

Directed by: Tom Laughlin
Starring: Tom Laughlin, Delores Taylor, David Roya, Clark Howat, Victor Izay, Julie Webb, Debbie Schock, Teresa Kelly, Lynn Baker, Stan Rice, John McClure, Susan Foster, Susan Sosa
Screenplay by: Tom Laughlin, Delores Taylor
Production Design by: Wes McAfee, Linda Morrow
Cinematography by: Fred J. Koenekamp, John M. Stephens
Film Editing by: Larry Heath, Marion Rothman
Costume Design by: Bill Smith
Music by: Mundell Lowe, Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: May 1, 1971