Chrome and Hot Leather

Come on now...a biker flick is supposed to be violent and sleazy. This one is so antiseptic it would have made it by TV censors in the 70's--even if the original American-International ads tried hard to suggest otherwise. It does contain one great line: As the biker gang leader prepares to rough up one of our heroes, he is distracted by a fellow gang member playing a noisy pinball machine, leading to remark, "Gabriel, can't you see that we're menacing someone?" Ludicrous music, seemingly from another film, accompanies one of the climactic fight scenes. Sadly, this film could give the Hell's Angels a good name.

Lee Frost was a capable and half-way decent director and cinematographer, I guess. He has a catalog of work from the 60s and 70s, such titles (and such titles I've yet to see the movies of) that includes Zero in and Scream, Mondo Bizarro, Nazi Love Camp and The Black Gestapo. I don't know if having such a catalog of work and a halfway decent eye as a DoP meant he made good movies. Probably not entirely the case. But Chrome and Hot Leather, aside from its hard-knock-awesome title, has a few things going for it. For one thing its star, the Lieutenant who returns from Vietnam to discover that his girlfriend was run off the road by a hothead member of a biker gang called the Beards (?), has a hard-jaw face and voice that's like a knock-off of Sterling Hayden. It's also got a likable-cum-sleazy cast of biker folk who get drunk, arm wrestle and sometimes have some group sex. Not that you see too much of it, of course, since it's PG-13 (at least today, maybe it was G-rated back then, who knows).

But the few things going for it, which also, I should add, includes an absolutely hilarious climactic battle where the Lieutenant and his army buddies take a whole lot of ammo and bombs and bullets to the bikers just to, you know, scare them and get them loaded with gas that the ex-Vientam guys need gasmasks for (!), are not enough to make it something you should rush out to see. Even if you're into trashy biker movies from the 60s and 70s, such as I am in that true-blue guilty pleasure kind of way, it's something to see further down the pike, preferably on the double-bill I viewed it with, the Mini-Skirt Mob. It's got a plot that's got enough meat on it to keep things a little interesting, even as the acting is sewer-tastic and the final showdown between the Lieutenant and the (accidental?) killer of his girlfriend is underwhelming to say the least. But, yet, Lee Frost puts in little moments, like one particular line by a biker in a bar about harassing someone, and seeing how the soldiers hilariously train on their newly purchased Kawasakis. You'd think they were getting ready for a reenactment of the video-game Excitebike as opposed to seeking vengeance on a bunch of dopes.

I must say, here was a bikie flick that really disappointed me. It's the most disappointing bikie flick I've seen in my life, when I first saw it at the tender age of fifteen. The title is fantastic and the cover was so appealing, but appearances can be deceiving. How can such a great titled movie represent such a dull film? Just watch Chrome And Hot Leather. Now some people may think I'm quite hard on this. Let me give you the rundown here. It has a good story/revenge premise of an ex green beret and his mob avenging a vicious gang of bikers, who've killed his fiancée. No surprise the lead bikie here is played by William Smith from The Losers, another bikie film, who came close to this on disappointed me, in it's first view, some shades of familiarity between the two as well. The Losers had a couple of men in berets too. Why you may ask this film doesn't work. In the violence and action department, it's remarkably restrained, and there's a lot of nothing happening moments, where the end is really when the movie perks. It's just flat, with nothing happening-ness. If judging the cover too, the movie looked more recent like eighties. We did have that rush of revenge running through our veins to see this beret to kick arse, only there wasn't enough kicking arse. Too much waiting around. We needed many more emotionally charged, and anger driven moments, that required more plot points, or even turning points. Trivia note. The lead beret, and other actor Peter Brown both starred in Rape Squad as very bad guys/rapists. And again, my true thoughts here: someone should rape this movie, before it's hired out again.

I appreciate the cheesy and inept exploitation flick as much as the next person--in fact, probably a good bit more--but even by by basement standards, "Chrome and Hot Leather" is a piece of crap. The whole story of Green Berets vs. Bikers is lame and unconvincing on all sides, the bikes are nothing special, nor is the riding done on them. But one thing does set this film apart and that would be the presence of the legendary Marvin Gaye as one of the aforementioned military types. And it makes one a bit sorry that he didn't do more acting (his only other dramatic role seems to have been alongside Lee Majors in a similarly forgettable film): Gaye's on-screen presence is as relaxed and charming as his musical style and he was certainly easy on the eyes. Still, what drove him to make supporting appearances in drive-in fodder escapes me--probably the same thing that drove him to train with the Chicago Bears. But, if it's biker trash you want, I suggest the classic "The Wild Angels" or the magnificently sleazy "She-Devils on Wheels." And, if you want to appreciate Marvin Gaye's talent, you might be better off tracking down one of his "Shindig!" or "T.A.M.I. Show" appearances.

This film begins with two young women driving on the highway and suddenly encountering a motorcycle gang known as the Wizards headed in the same direction. Not content with simply letting them pass, one of the members of the gang named "Casey" (Michael Haynes) decides to have some fun at their expense and demands that they pull over. When they resist he becomes a bit more aggressive which then causes them to swerve into him. Not badly hurt he gets back on his motorcycle and in a fit of road rage shatters their windshield with a chain which results in them veering out-of-control and subsequently crashing--eventually killing both of the women. Recognizing the trouble they have found themselves in the leader of the gang named "T. J." (William Smith) orders his group to flee the scene before they can be identified. Unfortunately for them, a traveling salesman comes upon the accident and overhears one of the women softly uttering the word "devils" just before dying. Not long after that a Special Forces instructor by the name of "Mitch" (Tony Young) gets the news of his fiancé's death and with the help of three of his fellow Green Berets decides to seek out those responsible. Although they don't have much to go on they immediately begin to look for a motorcycle gang with a connection to the word "devil"--and the Wizards just happen to carry that exact image on their jacket. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off well enough but got a little unrealistic and downright hokey toward the end. Even so, I liked the initial premise and contrast between the bikers and the Green Beret so for that reason I have rated this film a little higher than it probably deserves. Average.