THE WILD ANGELS (1966)
It is hard to believe that both Roger Corman's THE WILD ANGELS and THE TRIP were banned in England and back in 1967 I had to join Derek Hill's cinema club to see them. As a Corman devotee at the time who thought the great man could do no wrong I kind of liked them. Seen today they are both not only not very good but a bit embarassing. Like many films that were considered "hip" at the time they have not aged well. This even applies to EASY RIDER and that film is a couple of notches above THE WILD ANGELS. The plot is virtually non-existent. A gang of motorcycle freaks set out to bury one of their kind who was killed during a pursuit by the cops. They break up the church and their leader realises that their way of life is pointless. And that's about it. If you are a Corman fan there are a few things that just about make it watchable....Dick Miller as an oilman, watching Bruce Dern steal the films as a a strangely flexible corpse, Frank Maxwell as the preacher and if you look closely at the climax of the film you might spot a very young Peter Bogdanovich as one of the townsfolk (the only one with dialogue) and another performance by my favourite, Barboura Morris (Corman's regular innocent bystander) - remember her lovely bit with Fonda in the launderette in THE TRIP? It ain't a patch on Laslo Benedek's THE WILD ONE with Brando and Lee Marvin strutting their stuff through similar territory twelve years earlier. Rating **
It is hard to believe that both Roger Corman's THE WILD ANGELS and THE TRIP were banned in England and back in 1967 I had to join Derek Hill's cinema club to see them. As a Corman devotee at the time who thought the great man could do no wrong I kind of liked them. Seen today they are both not only not very good but a bit embarassing. Like many films that were considered "hip" at the time they have not aged well. This even applies to EASY RIDER and that film is a couple of notches above THE WILD ANGELS. The plot is virtually non-existent. A gang of motorcycle freaks set out to bury one of their kind who was killed during a pursuit by the cops. They break up the church and their leader realises that their way of life is pointless. And that's about it. If you are a Corman fan there are a few things that just about make it watchable....Dick Miller as an oilman, watching Bruce Dern steal the films as a a strangely flexible corpse, Frank Maxwell as the preacher and if you look closely at the climax of the film you might spot a very young Peter Bogdanovich as one of the townsfolk (the only one with dialogue) and another performance by my favourite, Barboura Morris (Corman's regular innocent bystander) - remember her lovely bit with Fonda in the launderette in THE TRIP? It ain't a patch on Laslo Benedek's THE WILD ONE with Brando and Lee Marvin strutting their stuff through similar territory twelve years earlier. Rating **
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