The Wild Angels

R

Released Jul 20, 1966

1h 33m

Action

List

63%

19 Reviews

Tomatometer

45%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

When Hell's Angels member Loser (Bruce Dern) has his motorcycle swiped, he entreats his gang to help him seek the bike, and revenge. Gang leader Heavenly Blues (Peter Fonda) and his lady, Mike (Nancy Sinatra), succeed in tracking down the thieves, but when a fracas breaks out between the gangs, the cops shoot Loser, putting him in the hospital. The rest of the Angels try to rescue Loser from his sickbed, wreaking havoc in the ward and doing their buddy more harm than good.

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The Wild Angels earned $7 million on a budget of $360,000, making it the highest-grossing low-budget film of its era. Not bad for a movie that had script issues between Roger Corman and Charles B. Griffith, as well as numerous re-writes by Peter Bogdanovich. Plus, the US State Department tried to prevent the film from being shown in Venice on the grounds that it "did not show America the way it is." And yet the Hells Angels brought a $5 million defamation lawsuit against Corman for how they were portrayed in this movie, which really makes me want to be a biker. Maybe they didn't notice while they were acting as extras, each getting paid $35 per day for their cooperation and $20 per day for their motorcycles. It's also the first movie that Peter Fonda would be associated with the counter-culture and motorcycles. While promoting The Trip and autographing astill from this movie showing he and Bruce Dern on one motorcycle, the actor came up with the concept for Easy Rider. It's also a movie packed with taglines that shove you into the theater like "Their credo is violence…their God is hate…and they call themselves The Wild Angels" and "The most terrifying film of your time!" Heavenly Blues (Fonda) shouts, "We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride! We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that's what we're gonna do. We are gonna have a good time. We are gonna have a party." That opening is at the beginning of Primal Scream's "Loaded," which informs so much of Edgar Wright's The World's End. This episodic film moves from trying to find Joe "Loser" Kearns' (Dern) stolen motorcycle to the gang evading the police to plan the Loser's funeral and how Blues, Loser's girl Gayesh (Diane Ladd) and Blues' lover Mike (Nancy Sinatra) are pulled along as the gang disintegrates as a final party descends into madness. The close of this movie, as Blues shovels dirt onto the grave of his best friend and says, "There's nowhere to go," is exactly why I keep coming back to Corman movies, which have such a heart and something to say in the midst of the mayhem and carny edge that get you into the theater. We also have this movie to thank for Laura Dern, as the daughter of Dern and Ladd was conceived while this movie was being made.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

Full Review

Audience Member

1st and BEST of the biker films. Serious climax. Provocative by any standard. And somehow seemingly effortless.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

delysid d

this is one of the most fun biker movies out there, what happened to roger corman though, by the 80s his movies were complete garbage

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

10/23/17

Full Review

Audience Member

Great stuff if you like old choppers...don't take it seriously

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

If you've ever thought to yourself, "I wonder what lower depths the lowest common denominator is capable of sinking to?" you could show them this film and it would be all too clear. I don't know how much of this film is reality and how much is Hollywood fantasy, but the film sorts of plods along as one string of violence, drunken partying, raping, and bike riding after another. This is the sort of thing that gives people who ride motorcycles a bad name really. I appreciate certain elements of the film, especially its historical value. It was the first film after many Poe movies that Corman did where he got out on the street and started trying to capture what was "in" at the time. The Hell's Angels were all over the media, and this film was the result. Starring Peter Fonda a few years before production on Easy Rider began, with Nancy Sinatra and Bruce Dern as well. The Wild Angels began the outlaw biker movie craze that lasted for a surprisingly long time, and so its influence permeates the American culture whether they realize it or not. While other hedonistic films can at least be fun while doing so (Corman's next film "The Trip" better captured that), The Wild Angels has an air of nihilistic doom in its ending and its hollow and vile pleasure pursuits. It's a difficult film to grapple with, since it espouses a message of freedom while depicting a group that yields to conformity in their own ranks and committing acts that are the natural end of Fonda's manifesto from the film: "We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! ... And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that's what we are gonna do. We are gonna have a good time... We are gonna have a party." As Fonda says this in the film, he is standing over his friend's dead body, and shortly after the speech the friend's widow is drugged and raped. Freedom to "do what we wanna do" is costly indeed. Fonda's character better sums up the absurdity of it all at the end. His girlfriend and fellow Angel buddy are riding away to get away from the cops, and as his "old lady" pleads with him to leave he says "There's nowhere to go." When you believe that life has no meaning and your pursuit of pleasure only ends in death and suffering, where is there to go?

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

one of director Corm.an's better films why? the chemistry between Fonda & Sinatra (Peter & Nancy that is)

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

Full Review

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Roger Corman

Director

Peter Fonda

Heavenly Blues

Nancy Sinatra

Mike 'Monkey'

Bruce Dern

Joe 'Loser' Kearns

Diane Ladd

Gaysh

Buck Taylor

Dear John

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Keith Phipps

The Verge

In many ways, The Wild Angels was a bellwether of where the decade was headed.

Sep 7, 2018

Full Review

Keith Phipps

The Dissolve

It's the Hollywood version of biker life, sure, but one that's swapped in a lot of ugly authenticity.

Rated: 4/5

Feb 18, 2015

Full Review

Variety Staff

Variety

Corman tackles assignment with realism, taking apart the cult and giving its members an indepth study as he follows a gang headed by Peter Fonda in their defiance of common decencies.

Feb 25, 2009

Full Review

Wendy Michener

Maclean's Magazine

The Wild Angels, a tale of revenge and violent fun in a California motorcycle gang, is one of the first commercial pictures to show the direct influence of U.S. underground movies, most of which are too far-out for general distribution.

Jun 27, 2019

Full Review

Tony Mastroianni

Cleveland Press

This is the sort of movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat -- ready to leave the theater.

Oct 3, 2018

Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Parallax View

... a portrait of emptiness and hostility, a social revolution spiraling into narcissism and self-destruction.

Mar 14, 2015

Full Review

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Synopsis

When Hell's Angels member Loser (Bruce Dern) has his motorcycle swiped, he entreats his gang to help him seek the bike, and revenge. Gang leader Heavenly Blues (Peter Fonda) and his lady, Mike (Nancy Sinatra), succeed in tracking down the thieves, but when a fracas breaks out between the gangs, the cops shoot Loser, putting him in the hospital. The rest of the Angels try to rescue Loser from his sickbed, wreaking havoc in the ward and doing their buddy more harm than good.

Director: Roger Corman
Producer: Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson
Screenwriter: Charles B. Griffith
Production Co: American International Pictures (AIP)
Rating: R
Genre: Action
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 20, 1966, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 16, 2008
Runtime: 1h 33m

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