As unique as First Blood’s premise may seem, its story was told long before Sylvester Stallone’s beloved action movie brought John Rambo to the big screen. Having launched one of the most popular and recognizable action movie franchises of all time, First Blood is an icon of 1980s cinema.
The Rambo movie franchise has long been characterized by its focus on the exploits of a former U.S. Green Beret as he finds himself sucked into conflicts all over the world, from Thailand to Mexico. But the series started from something completely different, as John Rambo was originally presented as an anti-hero tormented by a traumatic past.
Directed by Ted Kotcheff and based on the David Morrell book of the same name, the 1982 classic is remembered as a story about an ex-soldier with PTSD who finds himself pushed to the brink by small-town police officers with a dislike for Vietnam War veterans. It served as the basis for a great action movie, but Lonely are the Brave offered something very similar two decades earlier.
Lonely Are The Brave Shares Several Story Beats With First Blood
Both Lead Characters Are War Veteran Loners Who Clash With The Police
In 1962, Hollywood A-lister Kirk Douglas starred as Jack Burns in Lonely are the Brave, a modern-day Western sH๏τ in black and white. In the film, Kirk Douglas’ character is revealed to be a hitch-hiking, highly decorated Korean War veteran with temperament issues, which makes him instantly comparable to Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo when he wanders into Hope, Washington.
Like Rambo, Jack Burns’ arc kicks off with his arrival in a quant, quiet, little town in the United States. His arrival relates to the predicament of his friend, Paul Bondi. When Paul is imprisoned for helping illegal immigrants cross the border, Burns purposefully gets himself arrested to break his buddy out of jail.
Not unlike Rambo in First Blood, Lonely Are the Brave’s misunderstood war veteran anti-hero takes to the wilderness to evade the countless policemen pursuing him.
Initially oblivious to the fact that Paul has accepted his punishment for his crimes, Burns succeeds in staging a prison break, laying the groundwork for a manhunt that plays out for the remainder of the movie. Not unlike Rambo in First Blood, Lonely Are the Brave’s misunderstood war veteran anti-hero takes to the wilderness to evade the countless policemen pursuing him.
Lonely Are The Brave’s Central Theme Is Reminiscent Of First Blood
Loneliness Is A Core Part Of Both Stories
Despite being a Western, Lonely are the Brave has a lot in common with First Blood, and that extends to the stories’ overarching themes. Ultimately, Jack Burns’ actions in Lonely are the Brave boil down to his deep longing for the old-fashioned way of life once experienced by cowboys of the American Wild West, hence Kirk Douglas’ first choice for the тιтle, The Last Cowboy.
On the surface, Jack Burns’ Western idealism sets him apart from John Rambo, but what’s fundamentally at the heart of their problems creates a clear parallel between them – isolation. As the emotional ending of First Blood reveals, loneliness has a lot to do with the anguish he feels in the movie.
In both stories, the local sheriff plays a key role in the story, but with one key difference: whereas First Blood’s Sheriff Teasle is depicted as a jerk and the instigator of the conflict, Lonely Are the Brave’s Sheriff Johnson is portrayed as someone who’s significantly more sympathetic to the main character’s plight.
All his war buddies are ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, he has no known living family, and the people he meets once he returns home treat him coldly due to his status as a Vietnam War veteran. This, combined with his PSTD, fueled his inner conflict, paving the way for him to snap in First Blood.
That’s not dissimilar to what’s going with Jack Burns in Lonely are the Brave. About the movie, Kirk Douglas once said, “I love the theme that if you try to be an individual, society will crush you.” He’s an outsider too, and that aspect of his story is what defines the divide between him and the rest of society. There’s also the unspoken influence of PTSD on his violent actions in the story.
Like First Blood, The Lonely Are The Brave Changed Its Source Material’s Extremely Dark Ending
Both Main Characters Were Supposed To Die
Another interesting link between Lonely are the Brave and First Blood are the directions they took with their protagonists’ ending in terms of the source material. In The Brave Cowboy, the book Lonely are the Brave is based on, Jack Burns is killed in his fight against the police. Rambo meets a similar fate in the book his movie adapts.
Both movies deviate from their source material’s dark endings, but neither go as far to end on a truly positive note. In fact, both anti-heroes “win” their respective battles. John Rambo surrenders willingly in First Blood’s ending after defeating his main target (Sheriff Teasley), and Burns gets hit by a car after a successful escape (but doesn’t definitely die).
In the face of all the harm they caused, and the deaths dictated by their original stories, both seemingly walked away with their lives. The main difference here is that only one got a franchise out of it, with First Blood getting four sequels. As for Jack Burns, what happened to him after he was put in the ambulance will never be known.
