The Wild Angels

Roger Corman's modestly-budgeted "wheeler" for American International Pictures opens brilliantly, with the evocative cinematography from Richard Moore promising more than what Corman, screenwriter Charles Griffith, or the cast can eventually deliver. Plot has Southern California biker gang enjoying rumbles, cycle jousts, hassling the Mexicans, and outrunning the local heat; but when Bruce Dern steals a police-bike and gets shot, gang "president" Peter Fonda hatches a plan to break him out of the hospital and thus keep him out of prison. The film looks terrific from start to finish, but the line-readings are sometimes so painful and awkward, one wishes Corman could cut back on the dialogue and just allow the visuals to tell the story. Sort of the older brother to "Easy Rider", "Angels" was eclipsed in popularity and relevance just a few years later. Supporting cast includes Diane Ladd, Gayle Hunnicutt, Michael J. Pollard, and Nancy Sinatra, whose hospital crying scene is a hoot. *1/2 from ****

I first saw this show in '66 when I was a cycle rider myself. I liked it so much that I went to see it twice. Even liked the music. After watching it again over 30 years later, I have to ask myself just what it was that I found so appealing about the film. It was corny, overacted, sometimes badly acted, and it had a juvenile storyline. I guess what I liked about it back then was all the motorcycles. Good to see that Peter Fonda has improved with age.

The begin is awesome: The little child and then in front of the camera the wheel of Peter Fonda's cycle. Uuaah, it was great for me when I saw this picture first in the age of sixteen or seventeen. This moment I wished to be a biker for the next twenty years. Later Corman's way of film-making didn't work so brilliant for this young shy boy in Bayreuth, Germany. Lot of the rest of this movie is cheesy trivial, and so I remembered today this wonderful scene of terror and an actor in his best form. I don't speak from Peter Fonda (he is only solid like Nancy Sinatra too), the guy is Bruce Dern, one of the most underrated actors of US-cinema. My rating is six of out ten stars, because this picture was with Dern and also created the new genre of motorcycle-films. Marlon Brando as the leading actor in "The Wild One" didn't have the influence for cinema, nor for the fifties or for the sixties like this - sorry - in the sum very, very average picture.

Legendary b-grade producer/director Roger Corman had a hand in many bad movies, and some very good ones. He also made several in between, trashy but fun. 'The Wild Angels' is probably the best known of these. While Brando and 'The Wild One' caused a lot of waves in the 1950s, this is the movie which single handedly kicked off the highly lucrative biker movie cycle of the 1960s/70s ('The Cycle Savages', 'The Rebel Rousers', 'Hells Angels On Wheels', 'The Savage Seven', 'The Glory Stompers', 'Angel Unchained', and countless others). It also was an important step on the road to counter culture classic 'Easy Rider'. In fact more than one person has made the connection that 'The Wild Angels' plus Corman's psychedelic propaganda movie 'The Trip' equals 'Easy Rider'. Peter Fonda ('Easy Rider', 'Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry') plays biker leader Heavenly Blues and in doing so Fonda creates the on screen persona he would pretty much stick with for the next ten years or so. His performance is laid back and cool, or wooden and dull, depending on your perspective, but it certainly suits the character and the movie. The only time he really gets passionate is in his legendary speech in the church scene ("We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! And we wanna get loaded!"), later inspiration for Mudhoney and Primal Scream. Bruce Dern ('Bloody Mama', 'Silent Running') plays Fonda's doomed sidekick Loser. Now Dern is one of the most underrated actors of this era and is always compelling to watch. He and Fonda make a great team, and I always associate them together in my mind, but surprisingly they only made two movies together, this one and 'The Trip' the following year. Dern's old lady is played by his then wife Diane Ladd ('Wild At Heart'). Fonda's is none other than Nancy Sinatra! Michael J. Pollard, soon to appear in 'Bonnie And Clyde', plays Pigmy, one of Fonda and Derb's biker buddies, and being a Corman movie the legendary Dick Miller ('A Bucket Of Blood', 'The Terror') has a memorable bit part. Also keep an eye out for the beautiful Gayle Hunnicutt, later to co-star in 'The Legend Of Hell House'. Corman produced and directed this movie, Charles B. Griffith ('Death Race 2000') scripted, Monte Hellman ('Two-Lane Blacktop') was the editor, and Peter Bogdanovich ('The Last Picture Show') is credited as Corman's assistant, but apparently did a little bit of everything. On top of this there is a fantastic fuzz guitar theme performed by the ultra-cool Davie Allan. 'The Wild Angels' is trash, but well made and very entertaining trash, and is absolutely essential viewing for all cult movie fans or 1960s buffs. I wouldn't call it Corman's BEST movie (I'd choose one of his Poe movies, or 'Bloody Mama', or maybe even 'The Trip'), but it's one of his most FUN. Highly recommended!

This film had it all; sex, drugs and rock and roll. This is the trademark of all of Corman's films. Another trademark with this type of film is the fact that he, and other low-budget directors, rely on the children of Hollywood legends (Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra) to attract an audience. This is an okay film, and the Peter Bogdanovich's script is pretty decent. The only thing though is that it relied too much on the action to carry the story. Also, the women in this film are mainly used as window dressing. In fact, I don't think Nancy Sinatra had more than ten lines of dialogue in the whole picture. At least Dianne Ladd had more to say. However, the thing I loved the most about the film is the score, which was one of the first examples of what would become heavy metal.