Angels Hard as They Come

During the end of the 1960s/beginning of the 1970s there was the vogue of the biker movie genre. These movies where made with cheap budgets, actors who were making it big and directors who have only these as their only credits. I am not a fan of the genre as you probably can guess from the summary, but I gave it a try once it was on TV.

The Angels motorcycle gang has a feud with the Dragons and things get worse after they invite the Angels in the desert town of Lost Cause. The Angels' leader Long John (Scott Glenn) is challenged by the Dragons' leader General (Charles Dierkop) to a race and loses. Soon after that John meets a young hippie woman and it's infatuated with her. The leader of her gang Henry (Gary Busey) is not happy about the Dragons. After some races and some imprisonments, the Angels will have their victory.

The acting by Glenn and Busey was decent, and it was surprising since they were unknowns, but the pacing was dull and after a while the plot got stale. Apart from the acting, the music was the only good and memorable asset. A must see only for biker movie fans.

Also known as Angel Warriors. This is Jonathan Demme in his exploitation days for Roger Corman. Long before his independent movie days with Orion Pictures.

Demme did not direct this. He co-wrote this with Joe Viola, the latter is the director. Viola went on to have a strong track record writing for episodic television shows.

Scott Glenn is Long John. Part of a counterculture drug dealing biker gang. They party with a group of hippies in a old ghost town after hooking up with another biker gang.

When a hippie chick is raped and murdered. Long John and his gang are blamed by the General (Charles Dierkop.) He plans to torture them and then kill them.

They escape which then leads to a showdown with the General. Also find out who did kill the girl.

The movie is really a western with biker gang tropes. You know Long John is a good guy at heart, one of his gang members is black.

The General wears a German pointy helmet, some of his members have names such as Lucifer.

This is not a great movie. It follows the low budget exploitation genre. Violence, women dancing topless. Fight scenes.

Glenn has charisma is an early role. Gary Busey features as a hippy.

Scott Glenn and Roger Corman would later join Demme in the Oscar winning The Silence of the Lambs.

I, John Hand, was the editor of CUSTOM CHOPPER Magazine in 1971 and I had a car and bike painter friend named Bill Carter who was appearing in the movie with his Harley. So I went out to the desert and watched them shoot some scenes. I put a report of this movie in my magazine but I have to admit that I never saw the movie later. Mr Demme the director sent me a letter with some clarifications about the movie and I put the letter in my magazine. Jonathan Demme, the director also told me to keep my eye on Scott Glenn, because he was going to go places. Well, as it turned out, they both went on to make and star in the big blockbuster and award winner SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Who would have thought?

What an awful movie ... A bunch of "hip" motorcyclists invade a California ghost town called "Lost Cause". There, they confront a rival gang of bikers and some hippies. The story has no real point to it, nor any theme that I could detect.

There are way too many characters. And none of them are interesting. But they sure are "tough". They drink lots of booze. They smoke. They swear. They fight. They kiss their babes. They kick up a lot of ruckus. They emit dialogue like: "Lay it on me man" ... "I don't want a beer now, man" ... "Let's dig it, man" ... "I hope this works, man" ... "Make it good, man". They all act like rowdy ten-year-olds on a school playground.

And that playground is not the least bit interesting. Lost Cause looks like the back lot of some movie studio. The film's color cinematography is dreadful. Some of the images are either blurred or out of focus. Interior lighting is too dim. You would think that the filmmaker could have at least inserted some good music from that era; alas, no.

Just because it's a biker movie doesn't mean that viewers will tolerate a shabby screenplay, bad acting, or poor quality visuals. There are good biker films out there. "Angels Hard As They Come" is not one of them. At least the ghost town has an appropriate name. It's a good metaphor for this film.

Fans of 1960/70s exploitation movies will flip over this one! Jonathan Demme originally pitched the project to Roger Corman as "a biker Rashomon". Now that's not exactly how it ended up, but it's still terrific viewing for cult fans nonetheless. Demme co-wrote and co-produced and his pal Joe Viola directed. Viola and Demme were then involved with the women-in-prison movies 'The Hot Box' and 'Black Mama, White Mama' before they parted ways. Viola concentrated on writing for TV while Demme eventually became a major Hollywood director. Scott Glenn, who in the 90s co-starred in Demme's enormously successful 'The Silence Of The Lambs', plays Long John, a biker who gets invited to a ghost town where some Hell's Angels are partying with some local hippies. Unfortunately a girl is murdered and Long John and his pals are accused by the bikers leader The General (Charles Dierkop, of 'Police Woman' fame, and the Killer Santa in 'Silent Night, Deadly Night'). They face a kangaroo court and then... well, imagine your worst. Glenn and Dierkop are both great to watch but the real icing on the cake is the supporting cast which includes Gary Busey as an unlikely hippie, biker regular Gary Littlejohn, 'Vanishing Point's nude motorcycle girl Gilda Texter, James Inglehart (Randy Black in Russ Meyer's trash classic 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls'), Janet Wood (who as Sweet Li'L Alice featured in the unforgettable naked knife fight with Raven De La Croix in Meyer's 'Up!'), and even - get this! - the fat guy from Sam Fuller's 'Shock Corridor' (Larry Tucker) as a cat called Lucifer! Such a cast makes 'Angels Hard As They Come' essential viewing for all fans of psychotronic cinema! Don't overlook this forgotten biker gem.