Good Guys Wear Black

Good Guys Wear Black
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ted Post
Produced by	Allan F. Bodoh Mitchell Cannold Michael Leone
Screenplay by	Bruce Cohn Mark Medoff
Story by	Joseph Fraley
Starring	Chuck Norris Anne Archer Soon-Tek Oh Dana Andrews James Franciscus Lloyd Haynes Jim Backus
Music by	Craig Safan
Cinematography	Robert Steadman
Edited by	Millie Moore William Moore
Production company	Action One Film Partners, LTD Mar Vista Productions Western Film Productions
Distributed by	American Cinema Releasing
Release date	June 21, 1978 (1978-06-21)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1 million
Box office	$18.3 million (United States)[1][2]

Good Guys Wear Black is a 1978 American action film starring Chuck Norris and directed by Ted Post.^[3] This was the second film to feature Norris as the star.^[4] The film featured a first screen appearance by Norris' brother Aaron Norris and final appearances by Lloyd Haynes, Dana Andrews and Jim Backus.

Plot

Back in 1973, one United States Senator Conrad Morgan (James Franciscus), the chief delegate diplomat in negotiating the terms of the end of Vietnam War, made a deal in Paris, France with Kuong Yen, the North Vietnamese negotiator. The deal called for Yen to release certain key CIA POWs in exchange for Morgan setting up a death-trap for an elite group of CIA assassins, known as the Black Tigers. The treaty signed, the Black Tigers were sent into the jungles of 'Nam to their unknowing demise, under the guise that they were on mission to liberate American POWs. However, the negotiators failed to realize one thing: the commando's team leader was one Major John T. Booker (Chuck Norris). So, needless to say and despite all odds, Booker survives. As do the four men wise enough to have remained in his general vicinity.

Five years after returning from Vietnam, Booker, now living in Los Angeles, California, is now working as a political science professor at UCLA, donning a post-war moustache, and with a hobby of race car–driving. Booker lectures to a bunch of kids on how the war should not have happened, and that the U.S. should not have been involved. He then jokes about singing patriotic songs the following week to atone. Sitting in on one of his lectures is a bright female reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) who starts asking some very specific questions about the botched rescue mission. It seems that someone is slowly killing all the surviving members of the special forces team.

Booker is suddenly thrown back into his past when Morgan's appointment as Secretary of State spurs Yen to blackmail his ex-negotiations buddy into making good on his unfinished deal: the extermination of the Black Tigers.

Cast

Production

Norris said a friend wrote the script from a storyline he devised with one of his students.^[2]

Chuck Norris had a long dialogue scene with James Franciscus about the Vietnam War. Steve McQueen, who Norris knew, saw it and advised Norris to let support characters take care of the exposition, "then when there's something important to say, you say it."^[5] "Let the co-stars do the b.s. dialogue," Norris says McQueen told him. "I do it. Eastwood does it. Bronson does it."^[2]

Reception

The movie grossed $18 million at the box office, due in part to a year-long publicity tour Norris did.^[2] It received generally poor reviews.

Other media

Chuck Norris' character in The Expendables 2 is named Booker "The Lone Wolf", in homage to John T. Booker in Good Guys Wear Black.

See also

• Chuck Norris filmography

References

External links

• Good Guys Wear Black on IMDb
• Good Guys Wear Black at AllMovie