Plot
This biker gang exploitation picture from director Roger Corman and co-writer and editor Peter Bogdanovich earned critical respect in Europe for its gritty documentary style. Peter Fonda stars as Heavenly Blues, the leader of a wild, roving band of leather-clad bikers. When his best friend Loser (Bruce Dern) is injured in the midst of an attempt to steal a police motorcycle, the boys kidnap their debilitated buddy from the hospital, raping a black nurse and trashing the place in the process. Blues and his friends believe they've set Loser free, but he dies not long after the escape. Staging a funeral and drunken orgy in a small town church, the gang flees is set upon by the enraged locals, leaving Blues alone to face the law. Nancy Sinatra and a then-pregnant Diane Ladd co-star; a number of real-life Hell's Angels were hired to appear in scenes, adding authenticity to the picture. ~ Karl Williams, RoviReview
Roger Corman didn't invent the biker movie (The Wild One blazed the trail in 1954), but, with The Wild Angels, he gave it a new lease on life. Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra stand out like sore thumbs among the real-life Hell's Angels hired to give the film its grubby atmosphere, but Fonda's studied cool nicely contrasts with the aggressive surliness of the rest of the male cast -- and enough rock bands have sampled Fonda's "We wanna be free to ride our bikes and not get hassled by the man!" speech to turn it into a classic moment in sleaze-movie history. The film's beer-swilling, pot-smoking, and unfocused brawling may have become screen clichés in record time, but they were newer and more shocking in 1966, and the film's rough, unpolished visual style gives it a ring of truth missing from most of the films that followed in its wake. Add Davie Allen and the Arrows's classic theme song, which sent a generation of garage rockers scurrying for fuzz boxes, and you get perhaps the definitive 1960s biker flick. The film also offers the curiosity factor of knowing that Diane Ladd was pregnant with Laura Dern during filming. ~ Mark Deming, RoviCast
- Peter Fonda - Heavenly Blues
- Nancy Sinatra - Mike
- Bruce Dern - Loser Josey Kerns
- Diane Ladd - Gaysh
- Lou Procopio - Joint
- Coby Denton - Bull Puckey
- Michael J. Pollard - Pigmy
Credit
Leon Ericksen - Art Director, Roger Corman - Director, Monte Hellman - Editor, Mike Curb - Composer (Music Score), Jack Obringer - Makeup, Richard Moore - Cinematographer, Roger Corman - Producer, Charles B. Griffith - Screenwriter| The Wild Affair (1966 Film), The Wild & the Free (1980 Film) | |
| The Wild Beasts (1985 Film), The Wild Blue Yonder (2005 Film) |
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