The Wild Ride

This is an exploitation flick meant to entertain and perhaps teach us about the dangers of angry young beatniks with fast cars. Jack Nicholson stars as a larger than life punk who has a group of loyal young idiots who follow him with almost cult-like devotion. And, when one of the members DOESN'T, it ultimately spells disaster.

"The Wild Ride" was very low budget throughout and looks it. Aside from a very good performance by Nicholson as an angry jerk, the rest of the cast are uniformly bland. Also the story suffers because it is neither florid and 'racy' enough to be salacious nor is it ever especially believable. So, if you are a bad movie fan, it's just not bad enough to be especially entertaining and everyone else would just be pretty bored by it. But, on the positive side, it's not an embarrassment for Nicholson or any of the rest of the cast to be in this rather limp film.

While in 1960 Jack Nicholson was still relatively unknown here he gives his first leading man performance tho the movie was a quickly forgotten misfire. And that was reason enough for me for watching it last October.

Johnny Varron (Nicholson) is a larger than life punk that spends his nights organizing wild parties and his days racing on a dirt track and ending in trouble to the point of killing a policeman, kidnap the girlfriend of one of his friends and seeing another of his friends ending in tragedy.

The reason why this is a dud it's because in the first half was decent with Nicholson giving a decent leading man performance but in the last 20 minutes it became dull because of all the trouble his character caused. Besides, the race scenes weren't that exciting to watch as those seen in better race movies such as DAYS OF THUNDER.

Overall, a very limp film of interest probably only for three types of viewers: 1) Nicholson completists (2) fans of old movies (3) fans of bad movies because they can get a kick out of it.

The Wild Ride is the original (B&W) non-modified version. I have watched it several times and believe it is one of the best cult classics available. "Velocity" however, is a butchered color version that splices in new scenes lacking in any sort of continuity and ultimately destroying the mystique and integrity of the original film. Whoever had the idea for Velocity needs to be shot in the head because they turned a truly beautiful virgin classic film into a cheap prostitute with too much makeup. This is a true testament to the "less is more" adage. If you get to view both films you will see the ultimate travesty of how a great film was destroyed by a greed driven marketing attempt to update a true cult classic. In summary.... "The Wild Ride" GOOD............."Velocity" BAAADDDD!

What a bore following the antics of the teenage guys and gals as they wander aimlessly around. Whoops! I mean what a trip digging the scene with the super studs and their hot chicks. Hey man, it's real cool eyeballing head stud Nicholson laying rubber down the road or on the track. Too bad about his buddy Dave 's wanting to go suburb with his nowhere chick, uptight Nancy. But our head man will straighten him out. That is, if the fuzz don't nail him first.

Kidding aside, it's an ultra-cheap teen flick with Nicholson and a no-name cast, filmed entirely on anonymous location. I'd be surprised if it took more than five days total. Moreover, the scenes never depart from the kids and their antics; at the same time, there's no real plot except for a conflicted Dave feeling a need to go conventional. Nonetheless, it's rather competently directed and performed for a bunch of no-names. Heck, there's not even much campy about the 60-minutes, just a lot of aimless wandering around. Looks like the producers understood Nicholson as an up-and-comer and fashioned a drive-in quickie around him. Anyway, the dialog amounts to little more than what's supposed to be cool hipster lingo of the day, so be prepared, man.

Jack Nicholson has done better and most likely not done worse.

He's a punky teen hot-rodder exhibiting all the characteristics of a 1959-1960 juvenile delinquent. He's sore at his best buddy for hooking up with a girl who's not into the beatnik punk-kid scene and not eager to let her new guy stay this course to disaster. Best buddy is waffling between going straight and staying with the witless crowd. Nicholson exhibits a weird sort of subconsciously gay relationship with best buddy by trying to place a wedge between the gal and the pal.

Ending is totally out of context with the morals of this leader of the pack, but necessary for the film to have sociological value. Lots of fun to watch just for the wild slang.