The Wild Rebels

William Grefé is among the very worst directors of the 60s-70s, with such crap as "Death Curse of Tartu", "Sting of Death", "Impulse" and "Stanley" among his many achievements in film making. Most of these were filmed near his home in Florida...around the Everglades, Miami and Jupiter. And, they were done CHEAPLY...very, very cheaply. Al Adamson, Ray Dennis Steckler and Ed Wood all are about as good...or infamous...as Grefé.

Of all the films he made, "The Wild Rebels" is probably the best...which isn't saying much since I giver it a 3. It's not good...but compared to the rest of his films, it' practically an art film!

Rod is a race car driver who is frankly tired of one too many accidents, so he's decided to quit. Shortly after this, he's approached by the leader of a biker gang, as they want to hire Rod to be their getaway driver in a series of robberies. He naturally refuses but is convinced later by the police to return to them and accept their offer.

The problem with so much of the film is that it doesn't seem to know where it's going. This is especially true as Rod supposedly works for the police...though there's no coordination or plan. And, because of that, he nearly gets killed during the course of a bank robbery and getaway. Additionally, the acting and dialog seem pretty amateurish. But on the plus side, it's really not boring and occasionally it even manages to be more or less competent. Not a glowing endorsement, but for the director, this is high praise indeed.

By the way, if you do watch this film, note that the police must all be legally blind and stupid. See the last 10 minutes of the movie and you'll see what I mean!

"Wild Rebels" was probably a fun second film at a drive in movie triple feature 40 years ago. It hasn't aged very well, but it was never meant to age well; it was obviously intended to be disposable, forgettable fun from its inception. Taken on that level, it's a good example of the biker flick genre.

Several elements help distinguish it from the dozens of similar films being churned out at the same time. The 'hero', 'Rod Tillman' (Steve Alaimo) comes off as somewhat of an unimpressive 'Everyman' - he's not especially brave, tough, talented, or handsome (although he does win a fight with a tough biker gang member halfway into the film, and the girl gang member chooses to help him over her fellow gang member at the end of the film). The soundtrack is quite well done, featuring a nice 'Ventures' style bass/drum riff that keeps things moving and saxophones and brass charts that pep things up quite a bit. And although the script is pretty shallow, all the actors inhabit their cardboard characters convincingly and with a fair amount of energy.

There are plenty of careless technical gaffes: terrible 'day-for-night' scenes that occur in broad daylight, squealing tires in a swamp, fire sirens mistakenly stuck on the soundtrack instead of police sirens, a bank sign made of duct tape on a ceiling tile, a Luger that sounds like a Winchester 30-06, shotgun blasts that cut down people 100 yards away, a detective killing a biker on a 3rd floor landing from the ground with a revolver with a 2 inch barrel.

There are a whole bunch of goofy story elements : Linda (the girl gang member) disables a bank guard with a drug-filled syringe, the final shootout takes place inside a lighthouse (!), police roadblocks don't actually block roads, the police apparently never heard of ducking, and the police detectives apparently never heard of planting bugs or having their undercover guy wearing a wire.

But the plot chugs along, the cameraman knows what he is doing, the pacing in most scenes is pretty good, and there are some nice, zippy one liners and dialog exchanges here and there that keep the energy level up. (My favorite: "Man, you're messing with private stock! (ie, Linda)" So no, don't seek this one out or anything, but if a copy of the MST version should fall in your hands, you should have some good, shallow fun watching it. Vastly superior to "Five the Hard Way" or "The Hellcats" or even 'Girl In Gold Boots' (three other MST covered counter culture movies).

Legendary pop star Steve Alaimo ("Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying") stars as an unlikable stock car racer whose career has hit the skids (ha ha) because he constantly crashes his car (or as he laments, "I'm tired of being run down by every grease monkey that gets behind the wheel"). He falls into a bad crowd of humorously inept Nazi bikers, improbably named Jeeter, Banjo, Fats, and, er, Linda. Fats is the most likable of the bunch; he took a surfboard to the back of the skull and now only communicates through grunts, sort of a Harley Davidson Leatherface.

Anyway, Steve is fooled by the cops into catching the dastardly crooks in the middle of one of their bank robberies. The gang only robs banks for "kicks, man". I guess they give the money to charity. Steve fails constantly, the bikers get greasier, and the whole thing never comes off as daring because it's so dull. This movie looks like it was filmed through a grease-soaked paper towel. Not since "Necromantic" has a movie so trampled my soul.

The guy who played Fats went on to direct "Deranged", the Ed Gein biopic starring Robert Blossom.

Anyway, in summary: Wild Rebels: Hilarious on MST3K, dreadful everywhere else.

This movie was lacking in a lot of areas. It's about this Elvis type guy who races cars and is approached by these BIKERS from SATANS ANGELS. One of them is named Banjo and they beat up college kids for fun. THey want the Elvis guy to be their "driver". At times, I wanted the folks from MSTK3000 to be quiet because the movie was actually kind of good. Sure, there was violence and a lot of cheesy lines, such as "What kind of beer do you want? A COLD ONE". That was cheesy. The dude who plays Banjo is a great boxer and I was glad to see him do a few fight scenes. Also, the biker named FATS had a NAZI SWASTIKA on his jacket!!! That was pretty bold if I must say so myself.

Steve Alaimo takes time from his musical career to star as a washed-up stock car racer. He gets recruited by a motorcycle gang whose outfits tastefully combine the worst of ragpickers' work and Nazi memorabilia. After they beat up random guys in a bar because, they get Alaimo to be their getaway driver in their latest fund-raising expedition. What they don't know is he's an undercover cop.

Everyone is thoroughly unlikable, but the technical issues are decently covered; it's a constant mystery to me that there are plenty of fine cameramen -- even if their only previous run as DP was THE WILD WOMEN OF WONGO -- sound technicians and mixers, but writing a story and characters that you can care about remains a mystery. Never mind. There's a well-shot final shootout in the well of a lighthouse, with lots of overhead shots. Doubtless it's all symbolic, man. Woohoo.