Chrome and Hot Leather

This film begins with two young women driving on the highway and suddenly encountering a motorcycle gang known as the Wizards headed in the same direction. Not content with simply letting them pass, one of the members of the gang named "Casey" (Michael Haynes) decides to have some fun at their expense and demands that they pull over. When they resist he becomes a bit more aggressive which then causes them to swerve into him. Not badly hurt he gets back on his motorcycle and in a fit of road rage shatters their windshield with a chain which results in them veering out-of-control and subsequently crashing--eventually killing both of the women. Recognizing the trouble they have found themselves in the leader of the gang named "T. J." (William Smith) orders his group to flee the scene before they can be identified. Unfortunately for them, a traveling salesman comes upon the accident and overhears one of the women softly uttering the word "devils" just before dying. Not long after that a Special Forces instructor by the name of "Mitch" (Tony Young) gets the news of his fiancé's death and with the help of three of his fellow Green Berets decides to seek out those responsible. Although they don't have much to go on they immediately begin to look for a motorcycle gang with a connection to the word "devil"--and the Wizards just happen to carry that exact image on their jacket. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off well enough but got a little unrealistic and downright hokey toward the end. Even so, I liked the initial premise and contrast between the bikers and the Green Beret so for that reason I have rated this film a little higher than it probably deserves. Average.

The saddest thing about "Chrome and Hot Leather" (1971) is that it could have been a fairly decent film; at least by American International biker film standards. They seem to have had a large budget; at least enough to cast in quantity if not quality; and to outfit their biker gang (Wizards) with Harley's-something that was often beyond the budget of these things.

They had William Smith, the best movie baddie of the day, for their gang leader T.J. and Michael Haynes for the chain-throwing mama slapping Casey. In fact the whole biker thing is handled pretty well by the standards of the early 1970's.

Then they had an extremely young Cheryl Ladd (she looks about 16 although she was 18) and former Miss Ohio and Miss America Runner-Up Kathy Baumann (note the John Havlicek Basketball Camp t-shirt she is wearing). In high school she dated someone I knew and she also looks about the same in this film as she did then. Unfortunately neither actress gets to show much in the way of acting skills or exploitable assets. .

This is one of those movies the Army and Air Force Exchange Service saw fit to show us GI's at posts and bases around with world back in the early 1970's. To us at the time virtually everything military related was unintentionally hilarious, from Peter Brown's non-GI haircut (if it was a paying role couldn't he at least have cut it enough so you could see a portion of his ears) to the moronic combat training. It got laughs from us for months whenever someone brought up the topic. On the other hand what was supposed to be the film's comic relief, sequences of Peter Brown and Company learning to ride motorcycles is funny only to those amused by things totally lame and stupid.

In retrospect the film never had a chance given its director Lee "The Man With Two Heads" Frost and its star, the aging Tony Young. When you look bad in comparison to a non-actor (Marvin Gaye plays Tony's pal) it is time to find another line of work. Young lined up the financing for this baby and hired Frost on the condition he be given the lead. You won't find a more wooden actor than Young, whose character looks like an extremely dour 55 year-old man and is supposed to be the love interest for the two teen actresses.

Several times they appear headed in the self-parody direction (if that is what they had emphasized the film would be a classic) and Smith lets you know that he is playing this thing for laughs. But this tiny attempt at real humor is dwarfed by the unintentional hilarity and the giggles you will get from the many continuity errors that occur throughout the movie.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Lee Frost was a capable and half-way decent director and cinematographer, I guess. He has a catalog of work from the 60s and 70s, such titles (and such titles I've yet to see the movies of) that includes Zero in and Scream, Mondo Bizarro, Nazi Love Camp and The Black Gestapo. I don't know if having such a catalog of work and a halfway decent eye as a DoP meant he made good movies. Probably not entirely the case. But Chrome and Hot Leather, aside from its hard-knock-awesome title, has a few things going for it. For one thing its star, the Lieutenant who returns from Vietnam to discover that his girlfriend was run off the road by a hothead member of a biker gang called the Beards (?), has a hard-jaw face and voice that's like a knock-off of Sterling Hayden. It's also got a likable-cum-sleazy cast of biker folk who get drunk, arm wrestle and sometimes have some group sex. Not that you see too much of it, of course, since it's PG-13 (at least today, maybe it was G-rated back then, who knows).

But the few things going for it, which also, I should add, includes an absolutely hilarious climactic battle where the Lieutenant and his army buddies take a whole lot of ammo and bombs and bullets to the bikers just to, you know, scare them and get them loaded with gas that the ex-Vientam guys need gasmasks for (!), are not enough to make it something you should rush out to see. Even if you're into trashy biker movies from the 60s and 70s, such as I am in that true-blue guilty pleasure kind of way, it's something to see further down the pike, preferably on the double-bill I viewed it with, the Mini-Skirt Mob. It's got a plot that's got enough meat on it to keep things a little interesting, even as the acting is sewer-tastic and the final showdown between the Lieutenant and the (accidental?) killer of his girlfriend is underwhelming to say the least. But, yet, Lee Frost puts in little moments, like one particular line by a biker in a bar about harassing someone, and seeing how the soldiers hilariously train on their newly purchased Kawasakis. You'd think they were getting ready for a reenactment of the video-game Excitebike as opposed to seeking vengeance on a bunch of dopes.

I appreciate the cheesy and inept exploitation flick as much as the next person--in fact, probably a good bit more--but even by by basement standards, "Chrome and Hot Leather" is a piece of crap. The whole story of Green Berets vs. Bikers is lame and unconvincing on all sides, the bikes are nothing special, nor is the riding done on them. But one thing does set this film apart and that would be the presence of the legendary Marvin Gaye as one of the aforementioned military types. And it makes one a bit sorry that he didn't do more acting (his only other dramatic role seems to have been alongside Lee Majors in a similarly forgettable film): Gaye's on-screen presence is as relaxed and charming as his musical style and he was certainly easy on the eyes. Still, what drove him to make supporting appearances in drive-in fodder escapes me--probably the same thing that drove him to train with the Chicago Bears. But, if it's biker trash you want, I suggest the classic "The Wild Angels" or the magnificently sleazy "She-Devils on Wheels." And, if you want to appreciate Marvin Gaye's talent, you might be better off tracking down one of his "Shindig!" or "T.A.M.I. Show" appearances.

I saw this movie today on cable. I enjoyed the beginning of the movie and up to the part where the three Green Berets rescue their friend from the bikers. After that, it became pretty obvious that the movie was quickly going down hill. All the army equipment scenes were pretty cheesy. I never saw LAAW rockets used in the manner the Berets used them here. Why, if someone is shooting off rockets and mortar rounds, would the biker gang not leave the valley the minute the rocket blasts started. My favorite biker movie is MAD MAX. Now that was a mean biker gang.