La cavale infernale

'Run Angel Run'is the first of Bill Smith's biker movies, and is probably the best of them--a simple, surprisingly moving tale. There's a great title song by Tammy Wynette--how can you beat that? And Smith looks smashing as he always did in that period.

Joan Didion's essay on biker movies in 'The White Album' collection is worth reading. I agree with her about the excellent photography of the West-and the best may have even been in the subsequent 'Angels Die Hard', which has some good songs behind the scenes of the bikers riding on the highway.

'Run Angel Run'is referred to in Smith's 1976 'The Hollywood Man', where he plays an actor similar to himself in many ways--and exactly insofar as both had made 'Run Angel Run'.

The supporting players, including Valerie Starrett as his girlfriend, are also excellent.

William Smith was a very good casting choice for the lead, Angel is his name of course, for Run Angel Run. He's got a sympathetic side to his personality that somehow makes him work for Angel, who is sort of a rat talking to a magazine and getting a cover photo followed by the obligatory "I'm done with this, going legit" lifeline. He gets angry, sometimes in tantrum-mode, but he's also likable and attractive as a main leading man, as opposed to just another character actor (whom everyone else in the cast fills up either nicely or terribly).

But William Smith isn't the only reason to see the movie, and the guy who introduced the DVD I watched (I forget his name) would agree. There's a lot of guilty-pleasure stuff to the movie, to be sure, like the sheep-herding subplot, or the maniacally-shot bike-riding scenes early on and then later when they finally get to the action scenes. But, thankfully, Jack Starrett, the director, tries to tell a story here, and have some entertainment and drama run through what is mostly a paint-by-numbers thriller.

It's not just a lot of nonsense and, also thankfully, the nonsense (i.e. bar fights, dancing, even the corny love scenes and a, gag, walk on the beach) isn't too distasteful or amateurish. It is dated as hell, and it's mostly for those who love a trashy biker flick. But for those looking to take a chance, Run Angel Run is one of the more pleasant (yes, pleasant) entries in the biker-movie sub-genre, where the trick was the look past the cheapness of the film-making for a good time, like eating a sweet Charleston Chew.

"Angel" (William Smith) is a biker who is wanted by an outlaw motorcycle club known as "the Devil's Angels" for spilling their darkest secrets to a magazine for $10,000. But in order to retrieve the money he and his girlfriend "Laurie" (Valerie Starrett) have to drive from Los Angeles to Frisco and his old motorcycle gang is quite aware of his destination. So to buy some time Angel stops off along the way and gets a job with a sheep rancher named "Dan Felton" (Dan Kemp) who needs some help. The problem is Angel doesn't know anything about sheep and even less about settling down. Meanwhile, rather than giving up, the outlaw motorcycle gang continues to look for him and they are willing to do whatever it takes to find him. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started out pretty good but seemed to lose steam about halfway through before picking up again towards the end. That said, William Smith performed fairly well and all things considered I suppose it wasn't too bad as far as "biker movies" are concerned. Average.

This is a real Biker-Movie Classic. I think it was the first leading part for William Smith and also his first biker-movie. He did a great job. Of course it is a B-Picture, but it has some good and unforgettable scenes. One year later Smith and director Jack Starrett did another classic together: Nam's Angels.

This was the first film directed by 70s action and blaxploitation movie legend Jack Starrett (Slaughter, Cleopatra Jones, Race With the Devil) and despite a minuscule budget and a 13 day shooting schedule, it manages to hold up fairly well today, thanks in large part to its sharp cinematography and innovative editing. Starrett made clever use of split screen compositions to energize the action, and the often rapid-fire editing keeps things moving along briskly. Run Angel Run was also the first starring role for Big Bill Smith, and the one that made him a 70s action movie icon. As Angel, fugitive biker, Smith's chiseled features, macho mustache and bulging biceps get a lot of screen time. In fact, at times I found myself wondering why Smith was running from his gang - he looks like he could punch out every biker in California single-handed, then bench press their hogs. Anyway, the essentials of the movie - lone biker on the run, menacing bike gang giving chase, fast action on the road and lots of fights - made Run Angel Run a surprise hit and one of the few true classics of the short-lived biker genre, alongside Easy Rider, Angels Die Hard, and The Born Losers. Finally out on DVD from Media Blasters, the folks responsible for the Tokyo Shock DVD label, Run Angel Run features introductory commentary by Joe Bob Briggs and a title song by Tammy Wynette.