THE WILD ANGELS (1966)
Director: Roger Corman
MGM

Roger Corman's landmark biker epic features a gang of reckless Angels led by Heavenly Blues (Peter Fonda). Decked out in a black leather jacket, Nazi cross pendant, cool shades, and moppy brown hair, Fonda looks stylishly cool! His girlfriend Mike (Mike?) is played by monkey-faced, bleached-blond cutie Nancy Sinatra. Bruce Dern (as Loser) and his then wife, future Academy Award winner Diane Ladd, play a wed couple.

Blues and Loser lead an assault on a rival Mexican gang. Their commotion is interrupted by the fuzz, which causes Loser to panic, defect from his pals, and take off in one of the cop's cycles. A chase ensues, causing the pursuing cop to drive off a cliff with Loser badly injured enough to be brought to a local hospital.

The Angels discover that Loser is in a hospital and realize that he will ultimately be handed over to the police. They cleverly bust him out by having Mike (Nancy baby) pose as Loser's sweet and innocent looking sister to obstruct the guard. They escape with their sickly pal, but a nurse is raped in the process.

Being ignorant, the Angels remove the intravenous system that he was hooked up to, and Loser dies shortly afterwards(at least they did let him get high one last time before this). What next? How about a funeral? Better yet, a party/funeral for dear old departed Loser. Blues and the others take over a church, knock out the preacher (Frank Maxwell), and turn Loser's final farewell into an all out orgy!

This humorous and disturbing sequence has them taking Loser's corpse out of his coffin, sitting him upright, covering him with the Nazi/swastika flag, and placing a joint in his mouth (a good 20 years before WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S folks) while his widowed old lady is raped by his friends! The rest of the Angels take this grand opportunity to ball, drink, and get very high.

They later usher the body (motorcycles and all) to the local cemetery as the townsfolk maliciously look on. As the unwanted Angels commence the grave digging, they are attacked by the apprehensive spectators and a huge brawl commences in the middle of this graveyard. As police sirens are heard wailing loudly, everyone splits except the unaffected Blues who stays behind to make sure that his pal gets a proper burial. "There's nowhere to go," he exclaims.

In 1966, THE WILD ANGELS was considered shocking by some and important by others. Corman wanted to make the film after he saw a picture of the Hell's Angels on the cover of a magazine during the early part of that year. His idea was to make the film as realistic as possible, so real Angels were employed to tell their stories and appear in the film. The ideas of freeing Loser from the hospital and the biker funeral were taken from real Angels' exploits.

AIP originally cast George Chakiris for the role of Heavenly Blues. Corman demanded that all the actors playing Angels must ride on the cycles, no stunt doubles would be used. Chakiris was not kosher with this so he was dismissed from the project and the role was thankfully given to Fonda (who was originally cast to play Loser). This role made Fonda an American icon, as he was on his way to making one of the best American movies of all time, EASY RIDER (1969).

This film was such a hit that a celebrated shot of Fonda mounted on his bike smoking a joint was turned into a black and white pop poster which became a real hot seller and is still in print to this day. The real life husband and wife team of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd (Laura's proud parents) starred in the following year's REBEL ROUSERS, another biker tale which also featured Jack Nicholson.

Director Corman was confronted with extortion threats from an Angel involved in the production (the always resourceful Corman was able to convince him that putting his life in danger would not be a very wise idea). His assistant, Peter Bogdanovich, was an extra during the cemetery brawl and ended up getting a nice beating from a couple of real Angels! Film buffs might want to take note of early performances by Michael J. Pollard (BONNIE AND CLYDE) and Gayle Hunnicut (THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE) as members of Fonda's gang, as well as veteran Dick Miller as a frustrated construction foreman.

Corman carefully directed the film as to add a convincing sense of realism. The scenes of the Angels partying or brawling make full use of widescreen photography in order to illustrate multiple activities occurring all at the same time. For the first time, that vision can be appreciated on this DVD, which fully restores the original 2.35:1 (anamorphic) aspect ratio. The widescreen transfer looks superb, with distinguishable colors and only slight negative damage. The mono sound is fine (turn up those great guitar tunes by Dave Allan and the Arrows). The only extra is a theatrical trailer. (George R. Reis)

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