The Wild Angels

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Dave S For a movie that tries so hard to be cool, the only cool thing about it is the fact that a young Peter Bogdanovich served as director Roger Corman’s assistant. That’s cool. The movie? Not so much. Centering around a California chapter of the Hell’s Angels, The Wild Angels is one of those rarities in the movie world – a film without any discernable plot. They ride about on their noisy machines, periodically stopping to engage in a fight or drink beer or smoke some weed. That’d about cover it. As if that isn’t annoying enough, many shots are out of focus and most scenes run longer than necessary, including the funeral party bit towards the end, which could be one of the most annoying scenes in Hollywood history. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 10/21/24 Full Review Audience Member 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 3.5/5 Stars •  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 5/5 Stars •  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 4/5 Stars •  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 3.5/5 Stars •  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 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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