While it generally takes hit movies, including such recent blockbusters as “The Blair Witch Project” and “The Matrix,” only a few months to make the journey from the multiplex to video stores, others have found the trek to be substantially more arduous.
Consider the cases of Monty Hellman’s “Two-Lane Blacktop” and the two sequels to “Billy Jack,” all highly personal films that could only have been produced in the early ’70s, before the success of “Jaws” and “Star Wars” changed the face of Hollywood. While these pictures exist mostly as footnotes to other, more celebrated, products of the last great era in American cinema, at the time they were pretty hot stuff.
The news that they finally are finding their way into the video pipeline is at once highly welcome, long overdue, somewhat amazing and maybe a bit disheartening.
In 1971, Esquire magazine proclaimed on its April cover, which featured a photo of a hitchhiking waif, in the person of the freshly discovered Laurie Bird, that it already was prepared to nominate “Two-Lane Blacktop” as its movie of the year, and a worthy successor to “Easy Rider.” Like that generation-defining road picture, “Two-Lane Blacktop” followed a pair of disaffected hot-rodders as they raced across the country in a souped-up ’55 Chevy.
Unlike Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in “Easy Rider,” however, the juice that fueled the dreams of independence for Driver (James Taylor . . . yes, that one) and Mechanic (Dennis Wilson . . . him too) in “Two-Lane Blacktop” was high-octane gasoline, not cocaine. Despite all the hype (or, perhaps, because of it), “Two-Lane Blacktop” failed to live up to Universal Pictures’ box-office expectations and was shelved for nearly 30 years.
Also in 1971, maverick filmmaker and distributor Tom Laughlin produced “Billy Jack,” a sequel of sorts to his earlier martial-arts motorcycle flick “Born Losers.” It told the story of a group of kids in a New Mexico “free school” who were harassed by local reactionaries until an enlightened half-breed karate expert came to their defense.
The film, which seemed to preach conflicting messages of non-violence and vigilantism, was given a pathetic initial sendoff by Warner Bros., but, after a two-year legal battle, was rescued from oblivion. In a groundbreaking marketing gambit, Laughlin and his wife and partner, Dolores Taylor, took over distribution of the picture from the studio, renting space in theaters for its exhibition.
“Warners said we’d get an `A’ release and a big budget, but they opened it in `D’ theaters,” said Laughlin. “We tried to get an injunction against them in Chicago, where they wanted to put it in an old porno house, but Warners came at us with a connected law firm. So we pursued the case in Los Angeles.
“Two years into the lawsuit, the picture had only earned $400,000 for us, from $4 million in U.S. rentals.”
Laughlin and Taylor wagered that $400,000 that they could re-distribute the movie themselves and reach the audience already kissed off by Warner Bros.
“It was in the days before multiplexes, and no exhibitor would book a 2-year-old film,” Laughlin said. “We four-walled it and immediately did $38 million more in rentals . . . for a picture no one would book.”
Referring to this summer’s “Blair Witch” phenomenon, Laughlin added, “That picture sold about 38 million tickets . . . but we sold 58 million at a time when there were 50 million fewer people in the country. In today’s dollars, it would have done more than $250 million.
“You’d think when I came back to Warner Bros., they’d be happy. But they screwed me by selling it to television–as part of a 10-picture deal–which they had no right to do.”
When “The Trial of Billy Jack” was released in November 1974, Laughlin and Taylor stunned the industry by opening it in 1,200 theaters simultaneously and recouping $11 million in the first week. At the time, pictures generally opened in a few dozen big-city theaters before moving out into the hinterlands.
Nonetheless, three years later, Warner Bros. decided to bury the Frank Capra-on-steroids “Billy Jack Goes to Washington” before it even saw the light of day.
“In `Trial,’ we had the My Lai massacre and the killings at Kent State, and we had Nixon’s dirty tricks,” pointed out Laughlin, a populist who rarely enjoyed the blessing and advocacy of critics. ” `Billy Jack Goes to Washington’ is about how corrupt Washington is, and it’s never been seen. We had a private screening . . . Lucille Ball was there, Luci Arnaz, Walter Cronkite’s daughter, then-Sen. Bill Cohen and Sen. Vance Hartke.
“After the movie, Hartke stormed out of the room, calling me a son-of-a-bitch and a communist and saying the movie will never be released. Two years later, he got arrested for doing some of the same things we had in the movie.”
Although it would be logical to think that Warner Bros. would be happy to find a way to capitalize on the cult popularity of the Billy Jack quartet, it steadfastly has refused to put the sequels to the 1971 hit out in video form. Earlier this year, however, Laughlin decided to begin marketing a four-cassette collectors’ edition on his Web site.
The delay was largely the result of Warner’s refusal to acknowledge Laughlin’s claims to the ownership of the movies, and the mysterious disappearance of the “Washington” negative. The filmmaker, who considers himself to be the victim of a well-orchestrated smear campaign for pressing suits against the studio, finally was able to cobble together about two hours worth of footage from available work prints (the original was three hours long) and create an acceptable video version.
Warner Bros. had limited rights to video and television distribution of Laughlin’s films, but it wasn’t until he launched his Internet campaign, produced an infomercial and found an independent supplier that the studio raised its sleepy head.
“All of a sudden, Warner sent out the word to Best Buy and all the rest, `You can’t touch it. He doesn’t have the rights,’ ” said the onetime presidential candidate, whose acclaimed work as a Jungian psychologist, educator and marketing strategist is much less known than his karate chops and trademark hat. “Now, we’re doing all the marketing and putting up all the money, and Warners will get a piece of our action. Plus, they can still distribute their own `Billy Jack.’ “
By contrast, Hellman’s travails are far less operatic.
Although his movies generally are relegated to the “cult favorite” ghetto, Hellman is worshipped by cinephiles around the world (a statuette he received last year at the Chicago Film Festival has a place of honor in his living room) as one of the true auteurs of the medium. His existential westerns, “The Shooting” and “Ride in the Whirlwind” have an arty, European feel to them, and he was largely responsible for introducing audiences to the vast talents of the then-unknown actors, Jack Nicholson, Harry Dean Stanton and Warren Oates.
Oates’ performance in “Two-Lane Blacktop” is truly remarkable. He plays GTO, a chatty pathological liar who challenges the laconic gearheads, played by Taylor and Wilson, to a cross-country race pitting his stock Detroit muscle car against their patchwork mechanical improvisation.
The most-cited reason for the delay in releasing the Rudy Wurlitzer-scripted film in video was Universal’s inability to agree on a licensing fee for soundtrack music, including songs by the Doors and Kris Kristofferson. Hellman, however, suggests another hang-up.
“They have minimal interest in putting out their catalog,” he said. “Their main interest in video is current films, and that was the market they were after, which wasn’t unusual for any of the studios. Their catalog was really a secondary thing for them.”
It wasn’t until Anchor Bay Entertainment proposed a distribution deal that would benefit all parties that Universal agreed to invest some of its money in music rights, which they could then use for other purposes, as well.
For his part, Hellman is pleased mostly because he now has something to show for his efforts.
“The most important thing for me is to have a good copy of the picture,” he allowed, sitting in the book-filled living room of his Hollywood Hills home. “I love having the DVD and being able to show it to my kids. I’m going to visit a friend who has a brand-new big-screen home theater, and he wants me to bring `Two- LaneBlacktop.’
“Up until now, I had to be content with a tape I made off of VH1, which is in pan-and-scan . . . it’s not the same movie.”
Hellman is also excited that young film enthusiasts will be able to see Oates at the top of his game–here and in the soon-to-be-released “Cockfighter,” which suffered from an early attack of political correctness.
“Warren was more than an actor to me,” he said. “Once we worked together, he was in every movie I made, until he died. In a way, he was an alter ego.
“I think every director has some character in each movie that is his voice, and Warren was my voice.”
Laughlin, who, alas, no longer is in fighting trim, continues to wage war against Warner Bros. on his Web site (www.billyjack.com). He also uses it to dispense fascinating theories on market research, mental health and healing.
