Chuck Norris was the king of the 80’s on Friday night VHS festivals | film

WWhen Chuck Norris faced off against Bruce Lee in the 1972 film Way of the Dragon, it seemed like a clash between two legendary archetypes. For all his strength, he seemed to me boyish and almost thin, his body smooth as marble and tight with muscles defined like an anatomical illustration—the young, ascetic master of Asian martial philosophies. Norris was bigger, bulkier, shaggier, hairier, and fundamentally more American; He was as fast as Bruce (or almost), a master of taekwondo, jujitsu and his own style of Chun Kuk Do, but with a body that looked as if an ounce or two of old fat — the byproduct of the exotic Porterhouse steak — would be neither here nor there (although in later years Norris did order red meat).

Norris was a brash action hero in the stacked format also popularized by Sly and Arnie and later Jason Statham; He was essentially following the tradition of Western action, a Western-style fighting man who also absorbed the Eastern mystique of unarmed combat into a character who was also confident with heavy weapons. This combination landed him a starring role as Clint Eastwood’s unnamed man (indeed, his 1985 action film Code of Silence, about a cop on the edge, was originally developed as a Dirty Harry vehicle). But Norris had something a little more mysterious and a little less mysterious: you could call him a master of his own kind of ass-kicking ass-kicking white supremacist.

Norris could easily be considered part of the US military, and he had real experience, having served with the US Air Force in South Korea in the 1950s, where he began his martial arts training. He had his big hit in 1978’s Good Guys Wear Black, in which he played Major John T. Booker (a character revived in The Expendables 2), a Special Forces man who is betrayed (as is the wont on these occasions) by the crooked pink politicians of Washington, DC. Perhaps Norris’ heyday came in Steve Carver’s much-loved 1980s action films. In the 1981 film An Eye for an Eye, Norris played San Francisco detective Sean Kane who avenges his partner’s death after forcing him to surrender his gun and badge in time-honored style; He infiltrates a drug cartel run by the Triads and pulls off some serious martial arts moves in an indoor setting where the furniture has been turned into matchwood. Richard Roundtree and Christopher Lee play first-rate supporting roles as Keene’s flamboyant police chief and the newspaper editor who supports his crusade for retributive justice.

Two years later, Norris was in Carver’s Lone Wolf McQuade, playing opposite David Carradine; This might be his meisterwerk, a film with a title that tells you everything you need to know. Norris is a Texas Ranger named JJ McQuaid, who is theoretically part of modern-day law enforcement but detached from outside constraints like a medieval samurai. He lives in the middle of nowhere and packs that beloved firearm of Clint and Travis Bickle: a massive .44 Magnum. At one point, he was buried alive by bad guys in his Dodge, but broke free by revving the cylinder of a race-type turbocharger and driving up and down the dirt: a gruesome image of car worship and muscle-action heroism that made Norris’ fans adore him even more.

For Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus’ Canon set, Norris starred in blockbuster hit films and became a staple of Friday night entertainment on VHS. These included 1986’s The Delta Force, a slick, hard-hitting action adventure inspired by a brutal and chaotic plane hijacking in real life, but fictionally with a happy ending; In his final appearance, Norris starred opposite 63-year-old Lee Marvin, who played his commanding officer, Colonel Alexander.

For Cannon, Norris also starred in the Missing In Action trilogy. Like the Rambo films, the Vietnam films were central to the idea of ​​a prisoner of war lost in action who could escape or be rescued, thus salvaging a lone warrior’s heroic victory from the wreckage of American military catastrophe. Norris and his obscene phallic weapon were at the center of it all, vociferously challenging the melee. And before the debate over whether Die Hard was a Christmas movie, there was 1985’s Invasion USA in which Norris had to fight off a full-blown invasion of Miami from Soviet-backed Cuban communists, which culminated in a massive shootout in a mall where people were buying Christmas presents.

Norris continued to have great success on television and as a meme hero, but it was in the sweaty world of 1980s action that he gained his glorification.