It’s not the worst movie out there. Admittedly, it’s an exploitation movie, produced for cheap to profit from the rising popularity of motorcycle gangs. Yes, there is an obligatory orgy, a few fights, copious amounts of beer, pot, and primal behavior. The clichés are there, what else were you expecting?
Movies like “Hell’s Angels on Wheels” are bought based on the title, the plot, and the advertisement. There’s no need to showcase these movies at a film festival. They have a target audience that would go watch the movie regardless of critics opinion. This gives the directors a lot of creative freedom. Sometimes good stuff seeps into these movies, not because the editor wants it to be there, but rather because no one bothers to take it out.
To begin with, the actors look like believable Hell’s Angels, and that is some major goodness right there. The Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra performances were the weaker aspects of Roger Corman’s Wild Angels, which began the current boom of motorcycle pictures, for example. In this picture, Adam Roarke and John Garwood have enticingly grungy skin and are fantastically rude, irresponsible, hateful crude, and plain human.
Sabrina Scharf, the girl that every leader wants, is one of many novice actresses who captivate you while trying to fix their makeup amidst an angel’s ruckus. I suspect that the majority of the girls who accompany the angels look more like Phylyss Diller. Even though she is fully stunning, she somehow manages to pull it off.
The fact that the photography is good and surprisingly so is another reason to watch the film. There’s a part where the camera focuses in/slightly out while moving through a field of green grass wherein one of the big, bulldog’s bicycles is harshly lying in. The contrast is equally impactful as David Lean’s similar shots in ‘Doctor Zhivago’ (remember when the frosty window was slowly fading into the field of flowers?). There is also impressive footage of Hell’s Angels beautifully interlacing down a highway as a zoom lens takes first one then another into focus. This skilled camera work reveals that a documentary on cycles might be as poetic in its own way as the treatment of surfing in ‘The Endless Summer’.
However, this doesn’t mean that ‘Hell’s Angels on Wheels‘ is a MasterPiece. The plot has so many holes that one could drive a Harley Davidson through it.
Nonetheless, the movie indeed exceeds our expectations and manages to surpass its seemingly difficult bar. If you take it as it is, you might actually enjoy it.
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