Legendary b-grade producer/director Roger Corman had a hand in many bad movies, and some very good ones. He also made several in between, trashy but fun. 'The Wild Angels' is probably the best known of these. While Brando and 'The Wild One' caused a lot of waves in the 1950s, this is the movie which single handedly kicked off the highly lucrative biker movie cycle of the 1960s/70s ('The Cycle Savages', 'The Rebel Rousers', 'Hells Angels On Wheels', 'The Savage Seven', 'The Glory Stompers', 'Angel Unchained', and countless others). It also was an important step on the road to counter culture classic 'Easy Rider'. In fact more than one person has made the connection that 'The Wild Angels' plus Corman's psychedelic propaganda movie 'The Trip' equals 'Easy Rider'. Peter Fonda ('Easy Rider', 'Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry') plays biker leader Heavenly Blues and in doing so Fonda creates the on screen persona he would pretty much stick with for the next ten years or so. His performance is laid back and cool, or wooden and dull, depending on your perspective, but it certainly suits the character and the movie. The only time he really gets passionate is in his legendary speech in the church scene ("We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! And we wanna get loaded!"), later inspiration for Mudhoney and Primal Scream. Bruce Dern ('Bloody Mama', 'Silent Running') plays Fonda's doomed sidekick Loser. Now Dern is one of the most underrated actors of this era and is always compelling to watch. He and Fonda make a great team, and I always associate them together in my mind, but surprisingly they only made two movies together, this one and 'The Trip' the following year. Dern's old lady is played by his then wife Diane Ladd ('Wild At Heart'). Fonda's is none other than Nancy Sinatra! Michael J. Pollard, soon to appear in 'Bonnie And Clyde', plays Pigmy, one of Fonda and Derb's biker buddies, and being a Corman movie the legendary Dick Miller ('A Bucket Of Blood', 'The Terror') has a memorable bit part. Also keep an eye out for the beautiful Gayle Hunnicutt, later to co-star in 'The Legend Of Hell House'. Corman produced and directed this movie, Charles B. Griffith ('Death Race 2000') scripted, Monte Hellman ('Two-Lane Blacktop') was the editor, and Peter Bogdanovich ('The Last Picture Show') is credited as Corman's assistant, but apparently did a little bit of everything. On top of this there is a fantastic fuzz guitar theme performed by the ultra-cool Davie Allan. 'The Wild Angels' is trash, but well made and very entertaining trash, and is absolutely essential viewing for all cult movie fans or 1960s buffs. I wouldn't call it Corman's BEST movie (I'd choose one of his Poe movies, or 'Bloody Mama', or maybe even 'The Trip'), but it's one of his most FUN. Highly recommended!
