by the Mysterious Michael J. Whyte
"We want to be free! Free to do what we want to do! We want to be free to ride! To ride our machines without being hassled by the man! We want to get loaded! And we want to have a good time! And that's what we're gonna do! We're gonna have a good time! We're gonna have a party!"
-Peter Fonda in "The Wild Angels"
Grab your old lady and crack a cold one, it's time to kick start this history of the biker flick. Despite the occasional drift into the art house ("Easy Rider") or the Actors Studio ("The Wild One"), the biker flick remains one of the more disreputable chapters in film history; a genre that heralds those unwashed anarchists that one sees traveling in packs, astride their chrome hogs and uncobbled by law and the niceties of civilization. The wise man allows a wide berth for these leather clad nomads to pass. The fool is in for an ass kickin'!
Though films depicting the freedom and fun of motorcycling date back to the silent days, the dawn of the biker flick began in earnest with Laszlo Benedek's "The Wild One", starring Marlon Brando in 1954. Motorcycle clubs were becoming a phenomenon (particularly in California) during the post World War II years, with the most famous (and notorious) club, the Hell's Angels, springing from a WWII bomber squadron. By the early '50s, newspapers throughout Southern California were detailing the wild exploits of the packs of bike riders, provoking a fear of upheaval of staid '50s ideals and Morays, much like the juvenile delinquency and Rock & Roll scares of the same era.
"The Wild One" jumped on those headlines with both feet, and in the method acting Brando, found an iconic presence on which to pin its "troubled youth" theme. The film concerns the invasion of a small California town by the Black Rebels, a freewheeling gang of bikers lead by the malcontent Johnny Strabler (Brando). When Johnny falls for the sheriff's daughter and a rival gang (lead by a gangly Lee Marvin) hits town, trouble, as they say, ensues. While the film's menacing qualities have diminished with age, Brando's riveting command of the screen has not. The film's most defining moment comes when the Sheriff's daughter asks Johnny "what are you rebelling against?" and Johnny offhandedly replies "whataya got?" That single exchange defined the attitude of the Rock & Roll era.
Despite the success of The Wild One, there were only a handful films that followed that concerned themselves with renegade bike gangs. Edward L. Cahn's "Motorcycle Gang" in 1957 was a laughably lightweight film again involving rival bike clubs, starring John Ashley, Anne Neyland and, believe it or not, ex- Our Gang member Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer (who delivers some
hilariously "hep" slang).
Most of the depictions of bikers throughout the late '50s and early '60s took the form of broad send-up (as in Harvey Lembeck's goofy Eric Von Zipper in American International Pictures "Beach" movies) or blatant camp (as in in Kenneth Anger's underground classic "Scorpio Rising"). As an aside, Great Britain offered its own take on disaffected, bike obssessed youth with "Leather Boys" (which also threw domestic ennui and homosexual overtones into the mix). The king of the nudies, Russ Meyer, also weighed in with his unforgettable paen to rape and mayhem, "Motor Psycho", starring the inimitable Haji!
But the floodgates on biker flicks were about to burst open. In 1966, indie Producer-director exraordinaire Roger Corman commisioned his longtime screenwriting collaborator Charles B. Griffith ("Bucket of Blood", "Little Shop of Horrors") to write a potboiler about a motorcycle gang. The film Corman and Griffith cooked up was to change low buget exploitation cinema dramatically. Starring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra and featuring many real life members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle club (who were, according to Corman, impossible to direct, at one point even beating up assistant director Peter Bogdanovich). "The Wild Angels" was released in mid 1966 to a storm of controversy and smashing box office. Critics and moral watchdogs were appalled at the film's raw, anarchic energy and it's transgressive content (the film's protagonists are draped in swastikas, openly sniff glue, take drugs and orgy, and, at one point, even subdue and menace a pastor and demolish his church). In Peter Fonda, Marlon Brando's anxious, rebellious Johnny had transmogrified into Heavenly Blues, the film's pretty, amoral Christ figure. Posters of Fonda astride his chopper were a huge seller and the film made the unassuming (some would say vacant) actor a star. As icing on the cake, the film's theme, a fuzz soaked instrumental by Davie Allan & The Arrows was blasting from radios all over the world.
Seen today, "The Wild Angels" is far less shocking, though there's grubby atmosphere to spare. What makes the film hold up is the tight, fluiddirection of Corman (Corman's widescreen tracking shots are amazing), future director Monte Hellman's creative editing and the performances of the
talented supporting cast, which includes a positively filthy Bruce Dern, his wife Diane Ladd, the ever goofy Michael J. Pollard, the gorgeous Gayle Hunnicut and Kim Hamilton, Norman Alden, Buck Taylor and Corman stalwart Dick Miller.
The amazing success of "The Wild Angels" guaranteed a surfeit of biker-themed films, and low (and no) budget producers everywhere were not to disappoint. Hot on the heels of "The Wild Angels" was 1967's "Devil's Angels", a tamer take on the biker story, starring a disgruntled John Cassavetes, Mimsy Farmer, Leo Gordon and (once again) Buck Taylor. Also released in '67 was Robert F. Slatzer's amazingly inept "The Hellcats" (which was the introduction of the Vietnam vet vs. bike gang storyline which would become a staple of bikerflicks).
A cut or two above was "Hell's Angels on Wheels", directed by Richard Rush ("Freebie and the Bean", "The Stunt Man") and starring the late, great Adam Roark, a scruffy Jack Nicholson and Hell's Angels president Sonny Barger as himself. The film proved once again that there was money to be made in the biker genre and the ensuing years saw new biker flicks opening at the nation's grindhouses and drive-ins weekly: "The Glory Stompers", with Dennis Hopper, Jody McCrea (Joel's son), Jock Mahoney and (believe it or not) DJ Casey Kasem; "Born Losers", in which Tom Laughlin introduced his Vietnam vet halfbreed character Billy Jack to combat a brutal bike gang led by Jeremy Slate. The film also featured a cameo by a blowsy Jane Russell; the apparantly budgetless "Savages from Hell"; Richard Rush's "The Savage Seven", which benefitted from a soundtrack by Cream and Iron Butterfly. Herschell Gordon Lewis' wild "She-Devils on Wheels", which concerned a wanton female bike gang, featured the most unconvincing beheading in film history; the weird and inept "Naked Angels"; "Hell's Angels '69" found real Hell's Angels (including Sonny Barger) playing good guys out to thwart the robbery of Las Vegas' Caesar's Palace by "fake" Angels.
The '60s closed out with the odd and entertaining "The Cycle Savages", featuring an over-the-top Bruce Dern as a biker pimp. and the biker flick debut of the man who would become the genre's godhead, the muscular, imposing William Smith in underrated director Jack Starrett's "Run, Angel, Run". Finally, there was Al Adamson's deleriously unhinged "Satan's Sadists", starring West Side Story's Russ Tamblyn (delightfully sleazy) and movie tough guy Scott Brady. This may be the ultimate drive-in biker film. (No doubt about it!--Dr. Mality)
And then there was "Easy Rider", a film that subverted genre expectations and took put biker film into the art house. Directed by and starring Dennis Hopper, the film also featured Peter Fonda as the archetypal loner, as well as a galvanizing (and Oscar nominated) performance by Jack Nicholson as a small town alcoholic lawyer, Easy Rider's concept was deceptively simple: Fonda and Hopper sell a load of cocaine and use the proceeds to bike across the Southwest and South to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Along the way, the longhaired duo come in contact with the "real," frightening America. Cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs' dazzling cinematography, the Godard-like editing, the films dark, bitter ending and the unprecedented use of popular songs by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf and The Band ensured the film's "classic" status. Seldom has a film been so much of its time, and audiences responded like never before. Seen today, "Easy Rider" seems dated and remarkably slight, but there is no denying the film's impact at the time of its release. It changed the face of cinema.
The dawn of the '70s (and the wake of "Easy Rider") saw the biker film moving closer to the mainstream with "C.C and Company", starring Ann-Margret and football star Joe Namath, though the film failed to capture the grit and energy of the best biker flicks. Any film that has the preening Namath besting tough guy William Smith clearly doesn't understand its audience. Much better were the William Smith vehicles "Angels Die Hard" and, especially, "The Losers", Jack Starrett's classic bikers-go-to-Vietnam take on The Dirty Dozen, co-starring Adam Roark (director Quentin Tarantino was such a fan of "The Losers" that he included clips from the film in "Pulp Fiction").
The biker flick was clearly maturing and the next few years saw the release of some interesting variations on the form. Burt Topper's "The Hard Ride", with Robert Fuller, found the biker flick taking a low-key turn into seriousness. "Chrome and Hot Leather" was a by-the-numbers take on the vets vs. biker theme, starring Smith, Peter Brown and Motown great Marvin Gaye. Angel Unchained found biker Don Stroud romancing hippie Tyne Daly as Stroud's gang protects a commune from evil dune buggy driving cowboys (I'm serious!). "Black Bikers From Hell", which is self-explanitory.
"The Rebel Rousers," this is another film with the trio of Nicholson, Dern and Ladd, as well as Cameron Mitchell; the sadistic "The Peace Killers," starring future soap opera stars Clint Ritchie and Jess Walton. Two of my personal favorite biker flicks: "Angels Hard As They Come", co-written by Jonathan Demme and starring Scott Glynn, Charles Dierkop, a very young Gary Busey and the beautiful, underrated Janet Wood; and "Bury Me An Angel", a family revenge film starring the lithe and lovely Dixie Peabody, future "Grizzly Adams" Dan Haggerty and featuring the weirdest Southern Sheriff ever put on film.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention such fringe-biker films as theBritish "Psychomania", an odd mixture of horror and biker flick featuring oneof George Sanders final performances. Bikers and horror mixed well in the highly entertaining "Werewolves on Wheels" starring Father Knows Best's Billy Gray, Severn Darden and folk singer Barry McGuire.
In William Witney's strange 1975 comedy "The Darktown Strutters", the titular motorcycle gang is made up of black females led by Trina Parks. The film takes a slap at the Cinderella story (though the opening scene states "Any similarity to the story of Cinderella is BULLSHIT!") and Colonel Sanders. (How about "The Pink Angels", the stirring tale of gay bikers?--Dr. Mality) The '80s saw George Romero's interesting but overlong biker take on Arthurian legend, "Knightriders", but it was Kathryn Bigelow who brought the biker flick home to Brando territory with the atmospheric and enigmatic "The Loveless" starring a young Willem Dafoe and rockabilly singer Robert Gordon.
The heyday of the biker flick may be gone with the drive-ins, but as long as there's an open road, a cold brew and a hot hog between your legs there's promise for a biker flick resurgence. Ride on!
The Mysterious Michael J. Whyte is a rough but erudite conneisseur of both the seedy and the sancrosanct.