A Film at 45: A Force of One

0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome back to nineteen seventy nine in a Film Buys limited series A Film at forty five. I am David Burns and I'm Scott Hoffman with this limited series from a Film by podcast where we're dusting off the end of a decade the change cinema forever with a fresh look at modern classics and hidden gems that we can't stop watching. In this episode, we're giving drug running skateboarders a roundhouse kick with one of the earliest Chuck Norris classics, A force of War. We ever did this as good as dead. The whole essence of what we do is a philosophy of discipline. He hears the silence, he sees the darkness. He's the only one who can stop the killing.

0:49 Jennifer ONEO Chuck Norris in a force ah bah. He hears the silence, he sees the darkness. He's the only one who can stop the killing. It's all about attitude, Scott, and it's fortunate for us that we have Chuck Norris on our side. With a karate killer on the loose, we can join him in training for the next fight in the ring, or we can have him teach us how to fight to fend off these killers. Either way, we are going to see some serious fighting when Chuck Norris is involved, because there is no doubt he is a force of one. Scott. There are many out there that know who Chuck Norris is and they know how tough he is, but maybe this film got past them. So how would you describe this to someone? In the beginning, there was Chuck Norris and it was good. Not quite legendary yet, but good. Here we see Chuck Norris as someone trying to live a simple life in California, teaching kids karate and defending his title in martial arts championships. But that life gets complicated fast when drugs skate their way into his town, corrupting runaway kids and leaving a trail of dead cops. Chuck Norris finds himself the police to defend themselves against him, a serious karate killer, and eventually making his personal mission to clean up the streets. As the poster of this movie promises, Chuck Norris, here's the silence. Chuck Norris sees the darkness, and Chuck Norris is the only one who can stop the killing. And I just like taking Chuck Norris. Oh whatever again, Chuck Norris, Cet North. This stars

2:22 Chuck Norris, Jennifer O'Neill, Ron O'Neill, The Relation and Introducing Bill Wallace in a movie directed by Paul Aaron, written by Pat E. Johnson and Ernest Tideman. Yeah. Tidman is known as an Oscar winner two and he created Shaft, did he not. Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, very storied career. Yeah, absolutely, And I believe this is like the third film in the seventies who feature Chuck Norris. He had Breaker Breaker in nineteen seventy seven and Good Guys, We're Black in nineteen seventy eight. So you're right, this is at the beginning of his career, when he is starting to start shining and everybody's recognizing who he is. Yep, there's seven years after he faced off against Bruce Lee in the Way of the Dragon. Yep, that's right, man. I still can't believe he was in that. But hey, when Bruce grabs a little bit of his sweater hair and is like, yeah, Scott, this was my first time watching this film. I've seen a lot of his eighties work, but this one kind of flipped past me. What about you? Yeah, same here, Same here. I was very surprised and intrigued by the poster because you don't see his face right, Like it's advertising him as the you know, force of one obviously, but you don't see a lot of the you know, there's no mustache in this conster. Yeah. When when I first watched this film, I say, man, look how young he is. Look At how luscious that hair is and everything, the bouncy, feathery hair. Yes, yeah, you

3:53 know, I mean, this isn't an Oscar winning film. You know, you're not expecting it to be. This is one of those films you just want to sit back and watch some fighting and you know, of course it's Chuck Norris, so you know what you're going to get out of this film, Yeah, you know. But before we really dive into this, let's talk a little bit about this cast. As we've talked about Chuck Norris, he plays Matt Logan, who is what a full contact karate champion. Yeah, and he's like, you know, really busy doing those kinds of things, and the police approach him because they want him to train them because there are some martial artists out there like are killing some cops and they want him to train them so they can defend themselves and try to get to the to solve the of who is doing all of this. But you know, he at first he decides he doesn't want to do it, and then you know, he when he's training, he sees that imagery. But it's also you know, it's his adopted son, Charlie, you know, who is the son of the of an attic who died of an overdose. That kind of uh tips him over that edge too to help the police. Yep, yep.

4:58 It's it's a very interesting I mean, it's a straightforward plot. I'll say it's a simple plot because it's not chasing down a cartel. It's not you know, him against hundreds. It's more like there's that one mysterious killer that he's trying to protect them against, and he knows that it's part of distributing drugs that are ruining lives all around him, especially when it comes to kids. And I think that's one of the interesting things about this movie is that it feels like it's one where Chuck is almost kind of defining what kind of martial arts movie star he wants to be as much as he can be somebody who's you know, toting the guns or doing a lot of the action, a lot of fight scenes things like that. This one seems a little bit more like it's about helping kids, right, and about just basically giving back to the community. He's not doing this for well, I mean, at some point he's doing it for vengeance, but I don't know, I kind of got the sense that there was a lot of like he's a nurturing mentor more than he is. You can see that for sure, absolutely when he when you know he's running his karate class with all the kids and stuff like that, and how playful he is with them, especially when we see he's fighting that little kid, you know, and you know he's let her bring him down, you know in the fight. You know, you definitely can see that in him, and you definitely know that's not just his character.

6:25 That's actually Chuck Norris. That's who he really is. You can see that right, right. And I mean even the the dojo, I guess if you call it where he's uh, where he's working, it has almost kind of a sitcom kind of feeling. Yeah, you know, like his interaction with I forget her name, but the lady who's gonna saying like Matt, you got to train, you gotta do things. Kind of jealous of the Jennifer O'Neil character. But yeah, so it seems like an approachable kind of martial arts movie that you probably take kids too. Oh yeah, absolutely. And you know there are a few notes in this movie is that Chuck Norris's son Mike can be seen as the skateboarding pizza delivery boy, and Chuck and his younger brother Aaron did the choreographing and Aaron Norris did the stunt coordinating for this film. So definitely a brother thing going on here too, our family thing really yep. Yep, So yeah, that was good to see.

7:18 It was it was And I know you and I joined Jeff in the limited series when we talked about Firewalker with Chuck Norris for the nineteen eighty six series. Yep, yes we did. Yes, we did nice talking about mister Norris here. Yep. Well I was president, go ahead, and I was just gonna say I was surprised to learn a few things about Chuck Norris kind of getting into this movie. I didn't know that he taught Steve McQueen and his son. Oh I didn't know that martial arts. That was pretty cool. And somebody who was helping Chuck develop as an actor was Jonathan Harris Have Lost in Space? Yeah, doctor Smith, Doctor Smith. Yeah, apparently he taught him how to speak by putting his fingers in Chuck's mouth to stretch them open so that he would annunciate, which apparently is the only person that would get away with doing that. Right, Good for doctor Smith.

8:16 Nobody else try that, because it will not end well for you exactly. Well, then we've met Jennifer O'Neill, who plays Mandy Rust, the only FEMA on that police force with the way I see, and she obviously seems to be the toughest one of all of them in my opinion, and it's you know, she's one of the officers that approaches Matt Logan to help them out. One of the things I really liked is the chemistry between her and Chuck Norris. I thought they had great chemistry in this film. Yeah. I think she's definitely I would say, the smartest way of force for sure, especially because one of our colleagues goes in and you know, his partner gets wiped out because he's reminiscing out of baseball glove that he got from his dad way back when. It was just like, Buddy, I know you're a rookie, but why are you through a dark sporting anyway. Yeah, she carried herself with a lot of confidence. It seemed like she was the one who is the most kind of dedicated to learning the martial arts and kind of making sure that she could fight back and protect herself. But yeah, it felt like it wasn't trying to force a lot of, you know, smoozy kind of romance kind of stuff into it. They just had a connection and got along, and I didn't get the sense that he's never that he's ever had relationships really before that. I mean, maybe a couple of people, but nothing serious. So yeah, no, I definitely got that vibe to you from them. Did you find it weird that Jennifer o'n neil

9:50 got top billing over Chuck Norris for this film? Did you notice that? I did? I thought the the tippy top billing was a little intro because they also had Clue Gilliger aside from Chuck Norris. I've got it, I had never heard of either one of them. Yeah, before now, but apparently Jennifer O'Neil was a big, a big model back in the day, right, basically the face of cover Girl I remember from Scanners in nineteen eighty one. That's where I remember her from. Yep. So I wonder if she's the inspiration for Cover Girl and g I Joe, Oh, hey, I don't know, could be because of this movie and now you know, I no, he's at the battle that's set up right. Yeah, And speaking of klueg Gilliger played Lieutenant Sam Dune again, another horror movie that I remember him from. He played Burt in the Return of the Living Dead and he was also mister Walsh in a Nightmare Now Street Part two. I went to Doozy, Yeah, I know. I was love my horror annections, love it exactly. Yeah. But I think they had a good cast in this one. I mean, I think there were some times when Clues seemed like he was channeling his inner Jimmy Stewart, just like his mannerisms and his speech patterns. But I think they all did a good job. I wasn't necessarily expecting, you know, spoilers on a forty five year old movie,

11:22 that Ron O'Neill would be one of the bad guys. Yeah, I think they all did a really really great job, including Bill Wallace. I was kind of surprise. Yeah, speaking of Bill's Wallace tell us about him. He was already an undefeated middleweight karate champion. He was somebody who was a bodyguard to a rather famous person, unfortunately, John Belushi. He was the one who found John dead of cocaine and heroin overdose in his bungalow. Wow. So that's kind of a sad claim to fame. Beyond that, he had his own pedigree of you know, martial arts and fighting that he brought into it. I think that gave it a lot more authenticity to the fight scenes, especially in the ring. So I like that they were incorporating real fighters and oh yeah, just actors who could step into the ring. I feel like that's something else that, you know, probably the influence of Chuck Norris you can see there, because they have a different level of believability too.

12:26 You know, when you've got people who know how to fight, you don't have to really train them. You don't have to You just got to go to the choreography and make sure nobody's hitting one another. But yeah, I mean the realism was definitely there for the fights, no no doubt about that. Yep. And I think Bill Wallace he was like, did you retire like undefeated? I think he was like twenty three and oh something ridiculous like that. I think so, yeah, And you can tell. I mean he carries himself well in the role I was. It caught my attention how important it seemed like his role was like this, introducing Bill Wallace right there in the beginning. Mm hmm. It kind of draws you in and makes you want to learn a little bit more about him. Yeah, it does, and it definitely need to talk about Eric Luneville, who plays Charlie, who's the adopted son to Chuck Norris's character. One of the scenes that I love between the two of them was when they were sparring, and you know, Charlie was basically saying how he is ready to get into the ring and wants to do what you know, he what Matt does, right, and you know, then he goes, okay, you know, you know it's all about the attitude is basically what he's telling him there. And then he said, all right, if you want, if you're serious about this, you know, let's let's basically take off the gloss. Let's fight for real, right now. They kept the clothes on obviously, but they fought for real, and you know, Matt Logan kind of showed him what it was like and brought him down to his knees basically almost in tears, clearly showing that he wasn't ready and you know, basically leaning towards where his character was going to go and where the vengeance comes in that you were talking about

13:58 earlier, right, Yeah, a little bit foreshadowing because he sneaks into the I guess the what do you call it? This is not necessarily a compound, because that makes it seem like it's, you know, a bunch of guards standing around with rifles and automatic weapons. But he kind of observes a little bit of behind the scenes and he sees all the people that are kind of pulling the strings. Then he's surprised by Bill Wallace's character, who unfortunately kills him on the spot. So, yeah, it wasn't ready. No, what can you tell us about the director, Paul Aaron There's something really kind of neat about him. Yeah, So, so he was approached by American Cinema after the first director stepped out Ted Post, and apparently he didn't necessarily No, Chuck Norris is a movie star, because it wasn't quite that time yet, but he was familiar with him because he had seen a lot of Kung Fu movies with his steps. What happens to be John Wick?

15:01 Mister Keanu Reeves? Wow, Yeah, but a small world. Yeah, I would never I would never expected that. That's kind of a neat tidbit. And I wonder if that's where Keanu Reeves gets like his love of like John Wick stuff, you know, and in the fighting it could be. And you know, we know how good those films are with Keanu Reeves and the fighting that goes into that in the choreography, so you know, maybe that's where his love started for all that was back then with this kind of do you need? So do you know why Ted Posts stepped away? I believe he was just said he was too busy with other work and didn't have the time to work on this film, so that's why it went to Paul Aaron. Okay, yeah, that's interesting. Yep, Well, Scott, let's talk a little bit about this film. For me, one of the things that I love is a really good opening credit sequence for a film.

15:58 I know some films don't do it, but man, this one really failed. This really felt like a television opening, a television movie opening, is what it felt like to me. Am I wrong, No, I mean, you've got the single skateboarder that's you know, I guess kind of the drug runner, and you get this voice over kind of narration of these two cops that are talking about it, and you know, following him the whole way through. It just seemed to kind of draw it out quite a bit. I mean, there was a nice long shot, but it didn't seem like there's a lot of mystery there. No, this kid's going to the sporting goods store and a little frustrating because all they had to do was at least report their location, at least, you know, leave a note in your car that says going to check out the sporting goods store and then just don't tell anybody about it. But trying to get you know, whatever kind of raise or accolades they think they're going to get by cracking this case wide open, but that they go into the sporting goods store, have no idea how to back each other up and get killed. Pretty quickly, Yeah, by somebody who just basically crushes their throats, Like I don't know. To me, that seemed like very quick and I was like, I don't I don't understand how these two officers were able to stay alive so long, honestly, And that leaves me to my second problem. You know, with the

17:29 exception of you know, Mandy, this police force doesn't seem to be really good. Yeah, I mean you kind of you get this impression that you're you know when you talk about like having kind of a a TV show kind of feel. They have this meeting in what seems to be like a schoolroom or a classroom or something like that, with doctor Science, you know, standing up there in his lab coat and showing them rays of what crush next look like, Like, we know what you're saying. You don't have to show us X rays of that, But I don't know. It just didn't seem like they were taking it seriously. It didn't seem like they really knew what they were doing, especially because you know, then another detective duo is kind of brought down in the same sporting goods store because they're not backing each other up very well and apparently nobody hits the lights ever. Apparently, No, it'd be a good idea. But anyway, they definitely need more training than martial arts. I'm definitely gonna say that. Yeah, yeah, they could definitely use that. Yes, Unfortunately you would. You know, there are still some really good scenes in this movie. All the fight sequences are fantastic. The very first fight that we see Matt Logan in where he's in the ring, I thought that was really well done. And then you know, the fight against Sparks there at the end is fantastic as well. You know, that's one of my favorit parked of this entire film, was that

19:02 fight, because when everything is uncovered right there, like there's no dialogue, did you notice that, Like the camera was just moving around and you just looking at eye lines and people were looking at one another, looking around, and you know, the police move in to make the arrest, and I like that whole sequence. I think that was my favorite part of the entire film. Yeah. Well, and that's one of the notes where I feel like you can really see the touch of Patty Johnson as a writer on this one, especially the two fights that kind of bookend this whole thing. Now, Pat Johnson has an extensive background in stunt choreography and coordination. Whenever I you know, picture Pat Johnson, I always see the referee and the red referee shirt from Karate Kid. Yeah, but it's you know, each of those fights, it's not you know, legendary Chuck Norris versus some guy, right, there's actually a contest to it. He actually gets knocked around a few times. You're actually not exactly sure if he's gonna win the fight each time. So it seems like there's some authenticity to those fights, and it helps to kind of ground his character in somebody who's not just going around, you know, a vigilandi that's you know, literally kicking somebody and walking through the streets. But he's somebody who's a genuine martial artist that cares about the cares about what he's doing, yep, and treating it seriously. So I think that was a good touch and it was a it was a good way

20:36 to make sure that it felt like a movie about fighters for fighters, not necessarily just guy who's out there to recavoc and to develop his character further. I mean, you see this guy kicking butt in the ring and clearly you know, it's really good at what he does when it comes to fighting. But then you get that contrast where you see him, you know, with his karate class, which is a bunch of kids, you know, and you see how much he cares, and then you find out about his step son and what he has done to step in to take care of him, to make sure he gets a good raising. You know, you really get to see how well developed that character is. He's not just a mindless guy doing fighting in a ring. No, you know, he actually cares about people. He cares about society, and it comes off that way, which is what leads him into helping the police, right, and it seems like somebody that they're trying to kind of model. You know, this is a national star that kids can look up to and emulate in a good way and you know, not necessarily getting into, you know, the wrong kind of trouble and things like that. Right exactly, Well, let's look through the Lynn Scott. Let's talk a little bit about behind the scenes and stuff like that. I know this film cost around I think three million dollars to crew to make, between like box office rentals and all that kind of stuff.

21:49 I think it came in around seventeen to twenty million dollars, So a successful film clearly. So, I mean, at least you know that the movie hasn't going for that, that's for sure. What else did you find? So? I was surprised that the other writer behind this movie, Ernest Tityman, was also the writer behind Shaft, The French Connection and High Planes Drifter. Yeah, he's an Oscar winner. That's a pretty solid pedigree there is, right. Yeah. It also sounds like when he was working with Paul Aaron that there's a little bit of kind of rewriting behind them behind the scenes to make things fit Chuck Moore, I think is the quote that I saw yep so and apparently Tightuming was very sick during the filming and died shortly afterward.

22:44 But I do kind of wonder if we had seen that original script, how different it might be. Right when somebody says they want to fit Chuck more, is that it needs more action, it needs more fighting, or that it needs more of that kind of you know what we saw, the mentor the teacher, the the nurturing kind of influence. I assume it's probably the former that it was trying to include more fighting and more action. But yeah, think I think that that'll lead me a little bit into what I'm going to talk about during in the what if section about the the director Ted Post, and I'll go ahead and talk about it right now, since you know you brought it up. I definitely see what they needed to do is, you know, to make it more fitting for Chuck. I do understand that. But if I think if Ted Post had kept this film, I think we would have got a grittier film because he did like hang them high, magnum force, Uma beneath plenty of the apes. He did a lot of Western television series in the fifties and the sixties. I think that we would have got a grittier film, and we would have still had that Chuck element in there. I still think that we would have you know, they would have been able to choreograph it around him. But I think the script itself would have definitely been different than what we got in this movie. This version. Yeah, I think the police would have been a more hardcore than what we got in this film. And I don't want to put the film down in any way, but you know, you know, we just talked about the police force just is not that strong in this movie at all,

24:15 except for except for Mandy, And I think, you know, we would have seen a lot more a different police force in that film. So I do agree would definitely be a different film than what we got. Yeah, I think on the flip side of that, I think the bad guys so to speak, we probably would have had more from them as well. Oh yeah, thinking about the you know, like that scene that I mentioned before, it seemed like there's just this outfit of like four maybe five people involved in this. And when you think about the you know, the drug scenes that were used to nowadays, it seems like it's, you know, this massive factory and everybody's you know, in their underpants, wearing gas masks, and you know, it goes on through a giant warehouse. In this one, the scale of their drug operations seemed to be two evidence boxes, right that were about the size of a container of Kurshan's from Sam's Club. Like, it wasn't very big scale, So I think we probably would have gotten on both sides of it, we would have seen a bigger operation. There probably would have been more people for Chuck Norris's character to at least faced out if not taked out. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we in talking about the eighty six limited series that you know a film by does I think Jeff always asked that question, you know, a prequel remake. You know, this is one of those films that I wouldn't want to remake it just because I Chuck Norris is in it. But if I had that choice, I would choose remake only because I would like to see a grittier film on both sides. I want to see, you know, the villains be a

25:48 lot tougher than what they are. I mean, they do killing in this one, obviously, but we need to see it a bigger operation, like you said, And I think that is it a route I would have gone anyway. Yeah, this is a late seventies kind of film. You get that vibe in it, but I definitely would have liked it seen that come off differently than what we got in this film. Yeah, and even you know, not necessarily even remake, but more like extended cut. Yeah right, What was that original vision and how kind of that could play out? For sure? Yeah? Absolutely? I know there was like there was rumors where there was talks that this was designed to be like a follow up to Good Guys Were Black from nineteen seventy eight, not a true sequel or anything like that, But I don't know if that's true or not, but I read that in doing research for this film. Yeah, it doesn't make me kind of want to go back and watch that movie. Yeah, that I've never seen before, but just to see how it kind of compares, Like, you know, is that a place where it seemed like his characters were going in one direction and he chose to go to another, or does it continue in that same kind of thread. I don't know, I'd be interested to see that. And obviously, you know, this built into a much of your career in the eighties through today for check books, I mean, all the way to the expendables and beyond. So ye, yeah, it's definitely definitely made a presence here. I was also interested to see a very familiar face, speaking of nineteen eighty six GW. Bailey in his feature film

27:22 debut. We talked about him in Short Circuit that's right, but obviously a familiar face from Police Academy and Rizzo in mash that's right, and Mannequin if I'm allowed to, you know, sure have movie I've seen probably way too many times. But yeah, no, lots of lots of different movies. I love all the connections that we can always pull out of these love it yep, exactly. Yeah, all right, well let's score it. Scott, not really much to talk about with the music. It was done by Dick Halligan. He did like a couple episodes of The Bionic Woman. I know he would go on to do The Octagon, which Tuck Norris was in as well, and he also did one of my favorite which I don't probably should mit bj in The Bear. Do you remember that series, my Greg Evigant and his Monkey. That's right, that's not love, that's right.

28:14 I love that series when I was driving around in an Optimus Prime knock off. That's right. Yes. But then the movie basically does what it should do. The music does you know? You get that seventies vibe going throughout it? You know it matches the style of the film. You know, when the action sequences are happening, you're getting that, you're getting that typical I don't know what you would call. It's that fazy bear, that fazzy bear guitar where it waa. Yes, you get that familiar music going through the film, which is very fitting for it. So I'm okay with it. It was it was very fitting for the film. Yeah, if the if at the action, it didn't try to go to too many, you know, big places. I think it was just right for it. Yeah, absolutely, all right, So any did you find any quotes on the film. I didn't necessarily see a lot about this film specifically, but I did see something interesting from Chuck Norris, you know, kind of on the topic of kids, where he had said, it's the bullies who were afraid.

29:15 Those are the ones that do all the fighting. It's not the secure kids that get out there and fight, it's the insecure kids. When you develop that security in these youngsters and all of a sudden they have no reason to fight. This is to me the most gratifying thing I've ever been able to do. Now, obviously he's talking about what he's able to do in real life, but I feel like that's kind of the sentiment behind where you think they were kind of going with this movie and the kind of action movie they wanted this to be for Chuck Norris, and I respect that. I think it's definitely an interesting place to go, especially in the seventies, right before the dawn of the eighties when things would go gangbusters. But I like, as a bird's there, what about you? I do too. So I found a quote from Todd McCarthy from Variety. He wrote, though plot is far fetched and production values aren't much superior to TV, fair likable protagonist and strong karate seguitches will carry the day with the intended audience. And it does. You know, we talked about that little complaint that it feels a little bit like TV, but the movie still does pull it off in the end. You care about the characters, you know, you appreciate what happens when the vengeance happens, because we would all do the same thing. Scott, You've got kids, you know, if you were in a situation like that where you would go to right, yes, I would be. I would have the soundtrack of the WakaWaka guitar behind me the whole time. Yes, So no doubt about that. So I always like to see what critics talked about back in the seventies and stuff like that with these kind of films,

30:47 So it's kind of neat when you are able to find them like this. But yeah, I totally agree with him on that one. You know, it's like, as we said earlier, it's not an Oscar winner, but you don't expect it to be one, and that's not what it's going for. It's going to be, you know, an action film staring Cut Norris. Yeah, and I think you know anybody who's a fan of Jack Norris, obviously, if you've had reservations about seeing it, definitely see it. I mean, oh yeah, could it be stronger in some areas, yes, but is it a great way to look at kind of the start of his career or the start of his eighties career. Absolutely so, I think it's definitely worth a watch. I couldn't agree more with that. Absolutely. Well, did you see it? I saw this on Amazon Prime. Same here. I was glad to not have to go to the library for this one. The library, but yeah, right, it was kind of nice. Well, let's let's rewind favorite scene, Scott. I think you would have to be that that end fight scene like you were talking about, Oh yeah, just because like you said, it had no dialogue whatsoever, and it could have definitely gone to a very forced place. But I think it was interesting to see the action go outside it seemed a little you know, he's really going to be able to steal a police car. I'm not so sure about that, but I don't know a lot of a lot of action the right way to have the you know, the main good guy square off against the main bad guy. I thought it was appropriate. What about you? I agree that was that was my favorite scene. But I definitely

32:19 want to call out the scene again that we've already discussed is the scene between Matt and Charlie in their sparring. I just love that connection between father and son that you see in the film. You know, it's it's always nice to see when two characters are connecting like that, which obviously we said is foreshototing what's going to happen to Charlie unfortunately, but I thought that was really good. You needed that because otherwise you wouldn't have felt what Matt was feeling, you know, when when that happened. And then you get the scene later on where Matt basically goes to identify the body, which is brutal in itself, but the reaction that Norris gives you, I mean, he keeps it straight, man. He doesn't break down. You can see in his face that he shocked, which anybody would, you know, and he backs out. I basically know he's going to go kick somebody's butt because of what just happened, you know. So I hate to be that person, that's for sure. Yeah. The only dislike I have in this one. Man, the extra sound effects we got when Matt was fighting sparks outside at the end. You know what I'm talking about. You get that echo effect.

33:30 Oh yeah. Was not a fan of that at all. I mean, I'm sure it's a product of the time that this was made, but man, it really bucked me. Yeah. Yeah, I think as far as dislikes, there was one that was I just felt like it was pretty telegraphic what was happening. When they first looked at those evidence boxes that they're getting graded for the furnace or whatever. It was like, Oh, there, somebody's totally going to steal those. I mean, they're advertising. How much is going into I don't know. It just seemed like it's so small compared to what we're used to seeing. Again, it's just like there's not much there. I mean, I'm not sure at the time it was, you know, a million bucks in nineteen seventy nine, probably goes a long way, but there just wasn't much to it, so it made the scale of the whole thing seem a bit smaller than I was expecting. But I agree that's all right, No, I agree with that. Well, let's talk about the impact of this film like we always do, and that's why we do this podcast, because we want to talk about these movies from the late seventies so have a huge impact on movies that come up in the eighties, nineties and so on. For me, clearly, this is where Chuck Norris is beginning. You know, we've already talked about this and here you know later on he's gonna be doing the Octagon, the Missing in Action films, which I love, you know, Eye for an Eye, Force, the Vengeance, even the Delta Force, on and on, the Expendables all that.

34:53 So you know, this is a build up of what we're going to see from him, but we've already seen it. A lot of martial art films, not only from North America but especially from other countries, have been very successful. You know, Scott, you and I died the Five Deadly Venoms last year on a film at forty five. You know, there's already a market for these type of films, and this just continues the storyline of more and more coming to theaters. Yeah, I think it opens the door for more martial arts movies from the US that are going to feature martial arts education, right and competition. And it feels like it's a way, you know, kind of similar to Op Gun having neighbor recruiters outside of the theater, right. It feels like it's very much kind of promoting this idea as something for anybody in the age to get into. But knowing that kids are really going to want to see these action movies, using these kind of movies to promote that kind of stuf to promote the martial arts is something they can get into. I think is a great thing that this movie helped to kind of show how it can do and how it can do it well and successfully.

36:09 It definitely seems like it's something that helped to define what kind of star Chuck Norris wanted to be in his own movies, which I think we benefited from and all the stories I kind of followed his example. So yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, as always, I want to thank our listeners and hope you're excited as much as we are as what continue our journey through the year nineteen seventy nine. We've got a lot of good films coming up. I mean we've barely started. Yeah, but what is your favorite Chuck Norris film? Let us know you know. If you want to leave a comment, discuss what's next, or even half suggestions, you can find us at www dot film by podcast dot com, a film by podcast at gmail dot com. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

36:53 Until our film real start rolling again, go out watch something new, watch something different, and who knows what you'll discover next. Thanks everyone, Thanks