The Wild Angels

Roger Corman
1966

This Roger Corman exploitation biker picture has it's moments for sure, but doesn't add up to much more than some cheap shocks and cool fashions. Ostensibly made about, and with the participation of the Hell's Angels (a claim I find dubious), pretty boy Peter Fonda leads a mobile gang decked out with more Swastikas and Nazi imagery than you can "Heil" at. This profusion of visual rebellion leads to the picture's best line, when early on a cowering oil rig worker claims that he was "shooting guys wearing that stuff in the war." Fonda's performance is too shallow to really carry the picture (not so much his fault as it is the laconic writing's), but the colorfully played bit parts, bawdy women and bad dudes, spice up the picture. The highlight is a comrade's funeral that goes from somber to party in the blink of an eye as the revelers pose with the corpse, drink straight from the bottle, and rape the widow. There's no real rhyme or reason to Fonda's final impassioned stand other than to end the film, but "The Wild Angels" remains a generally entertaining cheapie.