J.C.

J.C. Masters is a long hair hippie biker who spends his days smoking weed in Alabama. He's bad at his construction job and quits with his black friend David Little. He reads about injustices in society and hates being harassed by racist rednecks. He leads his friends to return to his racist home town and his beloved sister.

This is a biker B-movie all the way. J.C.'s start is not appealing as a slacker hippie. Instead of being a bad worker, he should face discrimination by his redneck boss which would build up rooting interest for him and his black friend. It tries to do racial justice but it doesn't do it well. The racist town gets pretty good once they get there but it starts off with an annoying diatribe by a biker chick. The dialog is generally clunky but it gets to something interesting every once in awhile.

This film essentially begins with a young man by the name of "J. C. Masters" (William McGaha) working on a job at a construction site with his friend "David Little" (Hannibal Penney). Although he desperately needs the money, J. C. isn't very good at that kind of labor and as a result the foreman is constantly on his back about something or the other. Finally, after taking all of the abuse he can tolerate, J. C. quits and goes back to his house to apologize to his girlfriend "Kim McKool" (Pat Delaney) for losing yet another job. However, rather than feeling disappointed, Kim expresses her complete support and undying devotion to him. Not long afterward, J. C. has a drug-induced vision which he then goes on to share with his biker friends and in response they join him on a motorcycle ride from Georgia to the West Coast. To that effect, one of the first stops on their way is to J. C.'s former hometown of Mason, Alabama so that he can see his younger sister "Miriam Wages" (Joanna Moore). What they find, however, is a small-town mindset which not only disapproves of bikers but actually detests David Little simply because he is black-and it's this racial animosity which will eventually cause all sorts of problems for everyone concerned. Now, rather than reveal any more, let me just say that I have a good appreciation for biker films-especially those made in the 60's and 70's. Having said that, however, I must also say that this is easily one of the worst of its kind as not only was the pacing extremely slow but the writing was exceedingly bad as well. So bad in fact, that I felt embarrassed for the actors involved. Be that as it may, other than the presence of some really attractive actresses like Pat Delaney, Miriam Wages and Judy Frazier (as "Rachel Myers") there was absolutely nothing worth seeing here and I have rated this film accordingly.

In the first 10 min. of this retelling of the Christ story the boom mike is visible in half the shots. D minus.

Here's a movie for biker film enthusiasts. Its about a hippy biker who quits his job and leads his gang back to his hometown, which is run by racist cops! Unsurprisingly, the black biker gang member is huckled by the redneck police on a minor drugs charge and beaten up, leading J. C. and his gang to seek vengeance. You can guess by the initials of the title character, that he and his followers see him as some kind of messiah. I wouldn't say this is very deep stuff though, but it had some decent dramatics and suspense at times. Additionally, it's a boom-mic spotters delight, with that damned mic dropping into view left, right and centre throughout.

A good drinking game would be to take a shot every time you see the boom mic.