Orion Pictures made arguably the two best movies with the late Chuck Norris, Code of Silence and Lone Wolf McQuade…
The late great Chuck Norris departed the mortal coil. He wasn’t taken; he just left us behind. Norris’ legacy leans heavily toward the meme generation and viral internet humour. Chuck Norris Facts were an early internet viral fad that, for a time, spread like wildfire. They even bled into actual movies, not least a gag in The Expendables 2 (featuring Norris himself, sending it up) that saw the expendable crew joking with Chuck’s character by repeating one of the infinite Chuck facts to his on-screen character.
For my generation, we were already familiar with Chuck as an action star who was hugely popular in video stores across the World, as well as being a strong theatrical presence throughout the early to mid-80s. Yes, the subject of the Chuck Norris fact was more than a meme. Before my generation, he was known among the martial arts circles as a legitimate badass and former (6-time) World Karate champion.
Norris’ movie career was perhaps most iconically tied to two things. One, a face off with the inimitable Bruce Lee in Way of the Dragon and two, his Cannon Films headliners. Cannon was synonymous with unabashed B-movies, reinventing the star vehicle and popularising a low-budget, big-star formula that would become the staple for VHS premiere movies in the decade after their own demise. Cannon figured that they could lure a box office star like Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris or Sly Stallone into their canon by paying big bucks and cutting costs elsewhere. However, in hindsight, they still allowed for plenty of destructive bang for their buck in films like The Delta Force and Invasion U.S.A.
With Cannon, Norris’ persona was quickly moulded into a near indestructible and stoic all-American action hero, taking out the foreign hordes. Whether he was taking on terrorists in The Delta Force, or single-handedly repelling a Russian/Cuban invasion in Invasion U.S.A. It was the Cannon films in particular which perfectly personified the image that would later become the backbone of the Chuck Norris Fact.
But these weren’t Norris’ best films. Sure, Invasion U.S.A, the Missing in Action trilogy, etc., were masses of ridiculous fun, but another studio made even better use of Norris. That was Orion Pictures, the studio most famous for The Terminator and Robocop. Much like Cannon, their remit was low to modest budget, B-picture cinema, but they had a good run of elevating their material. The likes of Jim Cameron and Paul Verhoeven’s Robo-centric films became stone-cold masterpieces.
With Norris, they played on his tough guy, manlier than thou image, but retained some level of fallibility. He was moralistic, uncompromising, but always got the job done. Lone Wolf McQuade reteamed Norris with director Steve Carver, who’d previously helmed An Eye for an Eye (from the tail end of Norris’ early career period before he really broke close to the levels of Sly, etc.). David Carradine was brought in as the chief antagonist.
The film opens with its cards very clearly laid out. A neo-Western that wears its Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone heart on its sleeve. Lensed like a Leone Western (albeit not in scope) and capturing dust, dirt and sweat synonymous with the genre. It’s the kind of rich detail and visual character that you rarely see in modern movies, which feel overly clean and sterile. Chuck’s filthy in this. You can almost smell him, and his truck is permanently covered in muck, but that’s character, baby!
This also laid the foundational image of Norris as a Texas Ranger, later cemented by his iconic Walker: Texas Ranger show. Lone Wolf McQuade certainly shares no shortage of Norris-isms so tied to Cannon (in particular), but he’s a guy who still feels the threat against those he loves, even if his assured stoicism holds little fear for his own mortality. The film ranks fairly comfortably as one of his two objectively best works (alongside the other Orion picture). These films didn’t just make best use of Norris’s skills, capturing his speed of movement, they also brought out stronger performances than he’d previously been noted for. Norris was hardly Olivier, but he was allowed a little more range as McQuade.
Additionally, thanks to that great photography, capturing the Western vibe perfectly, and a fantastic, Morricone-esque score from Francesco De Masi, the film looks and sounds epic. In Carradine, you also had a reliable menace, a perfect foil to Norris and their final bout is nicely built up.
A few years later, Norris switched from Ranger to a Chicago cop. As per the action movie standard, a Norris lawman (or military man) is usually a little reckless and ill-disciplined, and here he is no different. Bolstered by the skilled genre direction of Andrew Davis (prior to Under Siege and The Fugitive), Code of Silence is a lean, mean, Chuck Norris fighting machine. It benefits from a great fusion of jazz, blues and funk mix from David Michael Frank’s propulsive score. It really lifts the film and helps keep momentum, as does the tight editing.
Norris’ tough cop will bend rules, but always within a strict morale code he’ll never break. This guy doesn’t take back handers, he dishes out backhands. When failing to back a veteran cop, unfit for duty, who shot down an unarmed kid, Norris finds himself alienated from his team, which couldn’t come at a worse time with drug gangs running rampant and a target on his back.
Survival and doling out justice are never in doubt, though, as Norris delivers comeuppance to the intensely menacing Henry Silva (always such a great villain). Depending on whether you most enjoy a neo-western or a thunderous cop action thriller, it will determine which of these two Norris and Orion vehicles you most enjoy.
Regardless, thanks to tight direction and slick fight sequences, Lone Wolf McQuade and Code of Silence make perfect use of Norris’s on-screen brawling ability and his no-nonsense tough guy image. Orion generally seemed to have a touch more care in the final products and perhaps slightly fewer off-screen issues that occasionally hampered productions. They also show him under more genuine threat than most of his Cannon films. It might be argued that Invasion U.S.A is a topper, precisely because it’s dialled fully to eleven, though the added dramatic stakes (such as they are) in his Orion flicks make the films more rounded.
SEE ALSO: 10 Essential Chuck Norris Movies
Do you think Chuck Norris’ Orion films were his best? Most of the ratings across IMDb, Letterboxd, et al, seem to suggest so, but what is your favourite Chuck Norris film? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
