The Wild Angels (1966) is a Roger Corman film, made on location in Southern California. The Wild Angels was made three years before Easy Rider and was the first film to associate actor Peter Fonda with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and 1960s counterculture. It was also the film that inspired the outlaw biker film genre that continued into the early 1970s.
The Wild Angels, released by American International Pictures (AIP), stars Fonda as the fictitious Hells Angels San Pedro, California chapter president "Heavenly Blues", Nancy Sinatra as his girlfriend "Mike", Bruce Dern as doomed fellow outlaw "the Loser", and Dern's real-life wife Diane Ladd as the Loser's screen wife, "Gaysh."
Small supporting roles are played by Michael J. Pollard and Gayle Hunnicutt, and according to literature promoting the film, members of the Hells Angels from Venice, California. Members of the Coffin Cheaters motorcycle club also appeared.
In 1967 AIP followed this film with Devil's Angels, The Glory Stompers with Dennis Hopper, and The Born Losers.
Story
In between sprees featuring drugs, fights, sexual assault, loud revving Harley chopper engines and bongo drums, the Angels ride out to Mecca, California in the desert to look for the Loser's stolen motorcycle. They blame a group of Mexicans in a repair shop, and the two groups brawl. The police arrive, chasing the Angels on foot, and the Loser escapes on a parked police motorcycle. After a chase on mountain roads, one of the officers shoots the Loser in the back, putting him in the hospital.
Blues leads a small group of Angels that sneaks him out of the hospital, but not before one of the other Angels sexually attacks a black nurse (The nurse later identifies Blues as one of the men she saw; however, the audience knows that it was thanks to Blues' intervention that the assault stopped short of rape). Without proper medical care, the Loser goes into shock and dies. His cohorts forge a death certificate and arrange a church funeral in the Loser’s rural hometown. Blues interrupts the service and, the Angels have a "party." The Angels remove the Loser from his Nazi flag-draped casket, sit him up and place a joint in his mouth, knock out the minister, place him in the casket, and two Angels drug and rape the Loser’s grieving widow, Gaysh, while Blues is apparently raping another woman.
Later, the Angels proceed to the Sequoia Grove cemetery to bury the Loser. There, the locals throw stones at the Angels and provoke a fight. As police sirens approach and everyone scatters, Mike begs Blues to leave immediately, but he refuses and tells her to leave with another member of the gang. Blues stays behind, and before burying his friend on his own, says with resignation, "There’s nowhere to go."
Impact and influence
Film critic Leonard Maltin called The Wild Angels "OK after about 24 beers." It opened the Venice Film Festival in 1966, to tepid response. Corman took chances with this subject matter and the Charles B. Griffith-authored screenplay, without being overly graphic, which paid dividends commercially: The Wild Angels was the twelfth largest-grossing film of 1966, earning US$ 5,500,000.00 in domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals.[1]
While promoting another of his 1960s counterculture movies, The Trip, and autographing a movie still from The Wild Angels depicting Bruce Dern and him sharing one motorcycle, Fonda conceived the film Easy Rider. Easy Rider was also about two men, but with each riding his own motorcycle.
The Wild Angels made a small but lasting impact on several indie rock bands and club acts. Davie Allan and the Arrows scored a hit with the fuzz guitar-laden instrumental "Blues Theme", which opens this film. The punk band Cheerleader 666 featured a still of Fonda on his bike on the cover of their Gutter Days EP.
Primal Scream's Loaded, Mudhoney's In 'N' Out of Grace, and several club acts such as Peran in Good time and Ultra in Free have all sampled parts of the "eulogy" spoken by Heavenly Blues at Loser’s funeral:
| “ |
We want to be free! We want to be free to do what we want to do! We want to be free to ride. And we want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we want to get loaded. And we want to have a good time! And that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna have a good time. We’re gonna have a party! |
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The Magnetic Fields song Papa Was a Rodeo from the album 69 Love Songs features a character called 'Mike' whose female gender is only revealed at the end of the song. This is an oblique homage to Nancy Sinatra[clarification needed].
References
- ^ Gebert, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Movie Awards, which includes listings of 'Box Office Domestic Rentals' for 1966 taken from Variety, St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1996. ISBN 0-668-05308-9
See also
- Outlaw biker film
- List of biker films
- Exploitation film
- Fonda, Peter, "Don't Tell Dad", Hyperion Books (April, 1998).
- Playboy, "Playboy Interview: Peter Fonda", HMH Publishing Co., Inc., pp. 85–108, 278-79 (September, 1970).
- Look, "Nancy-Another Swinging Sinatra", Cowles Communications, Inc., pp. 59–63 (July 12, 1966).
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