The Wild Angels (USA, 1966) 93 min color DIR-PROD: Roger Corman. SCR: Charles B. Griffith. MUSIC: Mike Curb. DOP: Richard Moore. CAST: Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, Buck Taylor, Norman Alden, Michael J. Pollard, Frank Maxwell, Barboura Morris. (American International Pictures)
In the first scene, Barboura Morris has a cameo as a young mother chasing after her kid who runs out into the sidewalk and suddenly, a motorcycle stops right in front of him. She collects the kid in her arms and the biker moves on. This is a brilliantly symbolic moment, portraying the Corman of old giving over to the Corman of new… with the birth of a brand new stock company, in such people as Peter Fonda and Bruce Dern.
In his star-making performance, Fonda portrays Heavenly Blues, the leader of the bike gang; and Nancy Sinatra is his “old lady”. Bruce Dern is the aptly-named Loser, who very early on is gunned down by the police, and then spends the rest of the film playing comatose, as he is smuggled out of the hospital by his pals, and then honoured as the departed at a biker funeral. While this movie was praised for its authenticity, today it appears as a catalogue of clichés that it likely created. With all the groovy music by Mike Curb (enough for two soundtrack albums), and additional dialogue by future director Peter Bogdanovich (he admits he simply added a bunch of “man’s” to the lines), it is less notable for its stereotypes than for the interesting lack of plot.
While the transportation of Loser’s body is the one thread throughout that provides Charles Griffith to write scenarios for the bikers to create plunder or fight authority, the film is essentially a pseudo-verité that non-objectively follows around the Wild Angels in their everyday outlaw lives. For that, this film is not as interesting as it should be, perhaps because we have seen too many other movies inspired by it. And as such, some of the scenes showing the bikers drinking and causing destruction become tiresome real fast. Corman received assistance from Sonny Barger and other Hells Angels members (who appear as extras), and somehow managed to make this movie one step ahead of the law, and without any of the chaos from the real-life bike gang, which had constantly threatened to erupt. (In fact, Nancy Sinatra’s father Frank threatened Corman that she had better not come into harm by the Angels, or else…) Despite all of the cinematic mayhem on screen, this is a surprisingly mannered movie, perhaps because Roger Corman is still a bit old-fashioned in his direction, or is skilled at creating something out of impossible conditions.
The film ends with the biker funeral being interrupted by police, and Blues foolishly stands his ground as the sirens swell. The prophetic line of Fonda’s Easy Rider, “We blew it”, would easily fit here. Yet this apocalyptic movie sired a new genre of films that gave steady employment to Peter Fonda and Bruce Dern. Once again, Roger Corman was first. (Trivia note: Dern co-stars with this then-wife Diane Ladd, and would again appear together in Howard Cohen’s enjoyable biker epic, Rebel Rousers.)
Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.