Biker Movies - An Introduction

 

If any aspect of cult cinema embodies the spirit of wild and carefree rebellion it’s the “Biker genre”. From its beginning in 1954 with the release of “The Wild One” staring a young (and less gelatinous and egotistic) Marlon Brando as the black leather jacket clad Johnny Stradler the leader of “The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club) who roll into Carbonville during a motorcycle race with the intention of stirring up trouble. While it might seem alittle twee to modern audiences the film was greeted with shock and hysteria by the press of the day, while the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) banned the film till finally awarding it an ‘X’ certificate (the equivalent of today’s ‘15’ certificate) when they allowed it to be released fourteen years after its original release, the original letter of rejection for certification stating that they were of the opinion that the film presented a

“spectacle of unbridled hooliganism… with no more than a mild censure from a police office, would be likely to exert a harmful influence in that very quarter about which anxiety is felt and would expose the Board to justifiable criticism for certificating a film so potentially danger on social grounds”

Unsurprisingly all this controversy resonated with the alienated youth of the time who loved the idea of the motorcycle riding rebel. While in the UK the battles between Mods and Rockers did little to ease the fears of the censors and general public leaving them to hold out on the film till they felt that the film had become too dated to appeal to the potential delinquents of the film whose rebellious nature they felt the film would only fuel.

Despite the controversy which surrounded “The Wild One” it would take the exploitation cinema legend Roger Corman to really launch the genre with “The Wild Angels” as he saw biker films as a way to revive the flagging Western genre seeing the biker film as its modern day equivalent with bikes replacing the horses. At the same time the wild nature of these films made them perfect fodder for the audiences of Drive-in’s and Grindhouse theatres who made up much of Corman’s target audience for the films he was producing especially with their common themes of revenge and the desire to live free and without the oppression of “The Man” (popular themes for the Blaxploitation films of the 70’s) which played perfectly in a time when civil liberties was still a key subject with the classic “Easy Rider” truly providing the embodiment of these themes.

“Easy Rider” would prove to be another influential title not only for how films were made, but the genre as a whole which soon saw more focus on storytelling as well as more essentially the riding sequences as producers attempted to hold onto an audience that had evolved and now craved more from these films than thrilling scenes of adventure and wild delinquency. It’s would being during these finals years for the genre that we also saw some of the most interesting films being produced such as the Blaxploitation influenced “The Black Angels” and the bikers in Vietnam “Nam’s Angels” aka “The Losers”; a film inspired by head of the “Hells Angels” Sonny Barger sending a telegram to President Johnson offering the Angel services as “gorilla fighters” (sic) which Johnson might have turned down but it did end up making a pretty decent biker movies as well as one can also be seen being watched by Fabienne in “Pulp Fiction”.

While stateside the genre might have been winding down but at the same time it also began to attract international attention with Japan giving us the “Stray Cat Rock” series whose first entry “Delinquent Girl Boss” memorably gave us a motorcycle / beach buggy chase through the streets of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Coming towards the end of the golden age for the genre, its presence would in Australian cinema as Ozploitation memorably brought its own twist on things with Australian cinema at this point already renown for its love of car chases really pushed the action side of the genre with the likes of George Millers “Mad Max” and its sequel “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" both memorably featuring psychopath bikers aswell as some equally memorable stunt work often shot on roads unofficially closed down by the production team. We would also get with “Stone” arguably one of the most iconic moments to be featured in any biker movie as it featured a funeral procession complete with a motorcycle Hearse and hundreds of bikers thundering down the highway.

Not to be outdone Britain too would throw its gauntlet down with “Psychomania” which not only brought a horror element to the biker movie as a biker gang called “The Living Dead” make a pact with the devil to become immortal, while also being led by the frog loving Alex DeLarge clone Tom. Despite gaining a cult following in the years since its release, many consider the film to mark the end of the biker film genre as exploitation cinema moved onto other areas as the times changed. The bikers which had once been the focus now being pushed into the background or taking on the antagonist role especially with the increase of interest in post-apocalyptic movies of the 80’s were the marauding biker gang was a common sight.

Nowadays the biker movie is all but a forgotten concept outside of the occasional throwback that the Neo-grindhouse genre has given us such as the Quentin Tarantino produced “Hell Ride” aswell as the equally awful“Dear God No!” and its sequel “Frankenstein Created Bikers” leaving my genre fans with mixed feelings for the genre. At the same time it’s a genre which hides some great hidden classics especially during the 60’s and 70’s and while a lot of it can be seen as perhaps overly campy or grimy for some tastes for the more adventurous movie watcher there is still plenty to enjoy.

Starting Point – Five Biker Movie Essentials

Motorpsycho – Directed by Russ Meyer’s just before “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” this film is not only noticeable for the lack of his Ultravixens, but also for being the first film to give a portrayal of the disturbed Vietnam veteran, many of which had returned from the war and drifted into motorcycle gangs unable to handle the return to civilian life.  The film has also inspired the name of the Norwegian Progressive rock band aswell as being refrenced by “White Zombie” in the song “Thunder Kiss ‘65’”

Born Losers – The first of the “Billy Jack” trilogy following the “Half-breed” American Navajo Indian, who is also a Green Beret Vietnam Veteran aswell as a hapkido master who has taken to living in the California mountains in his attempts to escape from society. Things don’t however go according to plan as he finds himself having to defend the town of Big Rock against the members o the Born Losers Motorcycle Club. A commercial success despite a negative critical response, the film would be followed by “The Trial of Billy Jack” and “Billy Jack Goes To Washington”.

Angel Unchained – Angel feels that his days as a biker are coming to an end and breaks away his gang “The Nomads” to try and find his own way in the world only to find himself caught up in a conflict between a hippie commune and the local rednecks leading him to call in his former gang to help provide protection for the commune.

Werewolves on Wheels – One of the few films to combine both biker and horror genres see also (Psychomania, I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle) and directed by Michel Levesque who had previously been the art designer for Russ Meyer. This film was largely used as double bill fodder but still has a fun hook as Adam the leader of “The Devil’s Advocates” is unwittingly cursed along with gang with Lycanthropy (the posh term for Werewolf) and its not long before they leave a bloody trail in their wake as they hit the open road.

The Hellcats – A film no doubt already known to fans of MST3K, here the gender roles are flipped as crime boss Adrian uses  the female motorcycle gang The Hellcats to carry out his drug runs. However when a detective is killed by one of Adrians henchmen leading to his army sergent brother and girlfriend to go undercover as bikers to infiltrate the Hellcats to get their revenge against Adrian.

 

Authors Note: Originally posted as part of The LAMB "Cult Chops" feature

Stone

Title: Stone

Director: Sandy Harbutt
Released: 1974
Starring:  Ken Shorter, Sandy Harbutt, Helen Morse, Roger Ward, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Vincent Gill, Bindi Williams, Dewey Hungerford, Rebecca Gilling

Plot: Police officer Stone (Shorter) goes undercover with the Gravediggers, an outlaw motorcycle gang to find out who is murdering their members.

 

Review: Originally I had intended to review this movie way back when I did “Ozsploitation Month” only to get distracted by other films to the point were I’ve only now finally got around to watching it. It is also safe to say that it is also far from the biker movie I first expected going into it, as what director Harbutt gives here instead is more of a tibute to biker culture and the outlaw lifestyle than most biker movies would concern themselves, as the focus is put less on their hell raising antics and instead more on the family unit they have crafted for themselves.

Released five years before the first of the “Mad Max” films, which several the cast would also go on to appear in, this film would also have the honour of being the first Australian biker movie, which considering what gear heads Australian audiences are really makes it all the more surprising that no one made one earlier. At the same time the Ozploitation era would frequently be responsible for so many of firsts like this including giving the world Australia’s first Kung fu movie with “The Man From Hong Kong”. Sadly though despite this legacy the film has largely been forgotten and no doubt I too wouldn’t have known about it like so many films in the genre had it not been for the truly essential documentary “Not Quite Hollywood” which equally served to provide a handy watch list for the Ozploitation genre aswell as countless stories to highlight the indie film making methods being used to make them.

Opening with not only with some seriously trippy visuals as one of the bikers witnesses the assassination of a politician while on a serious acid trip, but some fun bike porn for those of you who like your motorcycles as the Gravediggers roll out on old school Kawasaki’s (according to Wikipedia) with the opening credits being made up of sudden freeze frame shots of different parts of the motorcycle as the rider prepares for a ride. From here we get to watch various members of the Gravediggers being taken off in a variety of creative ways including the old wire decapitation aswell as an incredible cliff jump. While these moments are fun they are then completely overshadowed by arguably the best scene of the whole film with a biker funeral precession complete with motorcycle and sidecar coffin and a line of bikers which never seems to end, as some four hundred bikers turned out to help with the filming of the scene.

The downside of this scene appearing so close to the start though is that the rest of the film never manages to better it, especially as the pace becomes more sedate with Stone slowly earning the trust of the Gravediggers while at the same time becoming ever more drawn into their outlaw lifestyle, which here Harbutt chooses to show as being less anarchic in nature than other biker films and instead showing the group living in an almost hippie commune style situation. Equally interesting is the fact that Stone openly admits to being a police officer from the start, rather than the film taking the more well-travelled road of him hiding his true identity and finding a way into the gang. This honesty does as a result create an almost anthropological style situation, as the bikers immediately distrust Stone due to him being a cop and hence the embodiment of everything they despise. The scenes which follow all charting the slowly increasing trust he earns from the group by participating in gang brawls and from his riding skills all the while finding himself slowly being increasingly drawn to their lifestyle the more he learns about them. This is of course only further helped by the Gravediggers being slightly deeper than your usual bikers as highlighted during the scene where they share their stories of what brought them all together, with the majority of them taking on the outlaw lifestyle due to delusion with various aspects of society, with most falling under hot topics of the period.

While Harbutt might not here be focused on the usual biker antics he does however still give us a fair few including a parking lot brawl with a rival biker gang. What is especially interesting about these scenes though is trying to figure how much of the action was planned, seeing how Harbutt recruited a number of real bikers for the film who he was also paying in beer leading unsurprisingly to a number of fights breaking out on set, with the situation only being further antagonised by Roger Ward who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to call the local Hell’s Angels chapter a bunch of poofters from the hotel balcony. Harbutt aswell was a big fan of the group being believable in their roles and insisted on the group living embracing their roles as much as possible which saw them living the biker lifestyle throughout filming, a situation which also reportedly made it far from a fun set for the female cast members many of which complaining of being objectified throughout filming.

While it might be now more overshadowed by the “Mad Max” films this is still an enjoyable movie, even if its opening fifteen minutes is misleading as to what the rest of the film will be like, especially with the earlier mentioned funeral scene but it ensures that while the tone for the majority of the film is pretty sedate that it still saves a jaw dropping surprise for the ending! True it might be a very different biker movie and more for the completest than the casual viewer, but as a curious watch the set pieces alone make it a worthwhile watch.