Motorcycle Movies – our picks are below.
Video RX congrats to CineSavannah member and Challenge winner Cecil Daniel!
Okay, let’s get the obvious question out of the way.
Easy Rider isn’t here ‘cause it’s still sitting in our Netflix and Greencine queues. Would’ve loved to see it again – it’s been years – but maybe there just aren’t that many copies floating around. Word out to Columbia TriStar – the thirty-year anniversary is less than two years off. Can you say, "two-disc retrospective”?
So here’s how we picked ‘em:
The Wild One is our seminal entry in the genre.
Mad Max is here as the one that became known for something – or in this case, a handful of things – so much bigger than was intended that it’s like, “Oh yeah, I guess that is a Motorcycle Movie." And
Psychomania, well that one’s the oddball.
Additionally, this trio is an international collection.
The Wild One is squarely American.
Max is Australian, and
Psychomania is English.
Which just goes to show you, all the world loves bikers. At least the ones in the movies.
The Wild One (1954, seminal disenfranchised youth)
Directed by Laslo Benedek. Written by John Paxton and Ben Maddow (uncredited), from the novel
The Cyclists' Raid by Frank Rooney.
Starring Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Ketih, Lee Marvin.
You might look at
The Wild One today and think, “What was the big deal?” There’s so much about this movie that is so not eye-opening given how today we don’t just take for granted that there’s such a thing as a youth culture – I mean today we worship youth, (foolishly) emulate it well past the dictates of good taste and sensibility, and have built entire industries around it. (Do today’s plastic surgeons know what they owe to Marlon Brando?)
But that’s just the point, Daddio – back in the early fifties, the youth culture was just emerging. And here came this film – significantly, pre-dating
Rebel Without a Cause by more than a year – that said there was such a thing. And that we don’t really get what it is, or what it means, or how it’s going to change things. It’s just here, and things are going to change. And that it all might be really scary.
That’s another point – the fear in this film is so tangible. These reckless motorcycle gangs ride into this podunk town and start raising some mostly harmless hell and everybody just starts flipping out. The sheriff can’t deal with them, the town takes a divisive stance about what to do, and things quickly go from bad to worse. Hell, today they’d just throw them all in the can and start assigning parole officers. Scary? Sure, but today we have ways of dealing with it. Evidently not so in ’54.
Of course, then, there’s Brando. Is there a more career-defining line of dialogue than his response to “What are you rebelling against?” “Whattaya got?” says it all. His character defined the misunderstood (perhaps more accurately, “un-understood”) youth that the film helped define. Look at the difference between Brando’s Johnny, and Chino (deliciously played by Lee Marvin) -- the latter a common thug, and Johnny somehow communicating that he wants redemption, and some kind of acceptance from those he rebels against.
C:
. Brando's presence made this work for me; a little note-- make sure you watch this in the right aspect ratio.
M:
. I’m not so big on social commentary movies that are intended as such. But it’s a pleasure watching Brando. And there’s Lee Marvin -- that guy was having some fun.
Mad Max (1979, dystopian action revenge fantasy)
Directed by George Miller. Written by Miller and James McCausland from a story by Miller and producer Byron Kennedy.
Starring Mel Gibson, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, Roger Ward, Joanne Samuel.
Maybe not the first film one thinks of when considering Motorcycle Movies,
Max nevertheless fits the bill with its vision of biker gangs terrorizing a lawless future. And we include it here not wanting to take it for granted that everyone’s seen it. Yeah, it was a pop culture phenom and is an indie-filmmaker staple, renown for Miller’s grimy, low-budget, pioneering vision of a post-apocalyptic punk future wasteland, and for his talent in staging the still-satisfying action sequences. But believe it or not,
Mad Max has been out for almost 30 years!
A simple revenge plot here: Frustrated by the ineffectuality of the crumbling system of law, and alarmed at its slide toward revenge over justice, Pursuit Officer and driver-savant ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky quits the Motor Force Patrol. Seems he doesn’t want to become “like one of them” (meaning one of the gang of crazies the Force pursues). But when the bikers kill his wife and child in turn for his part in the death of one of their own, Max grimly takes to the road in the “last of the V8 Interceptors” to use his God-given talents and make them all pay.
Made for $400K and released on the drive-in circuit by Roger Corman’s American-International Pictures, the film spiraled into a giant indie hit, riding America’s adoption of punk style and setting Gibson (only 23 then and in his first film role) on the road to become the Hollywood icon he is today (complete with drunk-driving/racism scandal). And, it helped kick off the wave of Australian hits that followed. Miller and Gibson made two sequels, the first of which,
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, is considered by many to equal the original. But this one’s so raw, so creative, so gritty, you can almost feel the crew just outside the frame – and they’re enjoying it all as much as you.
C:
. Fun movie; sadly reminds me of modern day LA in some ways, but not really a movie I look forward to watching again.
M: As a movie on its own:
. For the whole
Mad Max phenomenon:
. I first saw this movie when I was in high school. It’s Friday night and a bunch of buddies and I go to the drive-in ‘cause we’re bored -- there’s some horny teenager cheerleader movie playing that might be good for a few laughs. We get there, and here’s this wild action-car-chase-post-nuclear-outlaw thing onscreen. It’s halfway over so we don’t know what’s going on, but we’re glued to it. It finishes, we sit through the cheerleader movie, then watch the entire second screening of
Mad Max. How many times did this happen all across the country? Movie history was made.
Psychomania (1971, supernatural youth action)
Directed by Don Sharp. Written by Julian Zimet and Amaud d’Usseau.
Starring Nicky Henson, Mary Larkin, Beryl Reid, George Sanders.
Young Tom, leader of the motorcycle gang aptly named The Living Dead, loves to raise hell. He loves it so much, he wants to do it forever. Fortunately for Tom, his mom has made a deal with the devil and has some kind of weird, frog-worship talisman thingy. Tom can get his wish -- to be immortal, and to have superhuman strength (Bonus!) -- if he kills himself. So he does – kill himself, that is – by flying his Triumph off a bridge. And then he does – come back, that is -- immortal and super-strong. The rest of Tom’s gang does the same (inexplicably sans Tom’s mom’s deal and frog necklace), and then life in the film’s idyllic English hamlet really goes into the dumper – for everyone but The Living Dead. The gang trashes the grocery store, the town center – twice, knock over a few unfortunately-placed baby carriages, run drivers off the road right and left, and generally raise… well, Hell. But Tom’s girlfriend chickens out and lies about killing herself, and Tom’s mom backs out of her pact with the devil, and in the end things don’t work out so well for Tom and the gang. Let their misfortune be a lesson to you.
If this all sounds silly, it is. Sure, the pace kinda drags between the scenes of motorcycle mayhem. And Nicky Henson as Tom comes off as a tad irritatingly pompous. And I still wanna know how they buried him with
his head obviously sticking up above the top of the grave. But c’mon, are you really watching this for the acting and spot-on directing? Or for its logic? The stunt riders’ and drivers’ enthusiasm is evident – especially considering the presumably miniscule budget, there’s this great sequence where the gang is offing themselves in goofy ways, and the whole premise is so out there that
P'mania is an oddity worth checking out -- when you’re in the mood.
Then there’s the biker gang themselves, who ride (no pun intended, but we’ll take credit/blame) a thin historical/cultural line between colorful early-seventies hippies and dark, nihilistic proto-punks. And all that groovy fashion (What happened to miniskirts anyway? There should be a law!) and fabulous design aesthetic -- it's the real thing, baby, no Austin Powers here.
Bonus cool: The on-camera performance of the made-for-the-movie song, “Riding Free”. Here’re some sample lyrics:
He really got it on
He rode that sweet machine just like a bomb
He felt her in his soul but no one there could find him
So he left those fools behind him
With a feeling that they could not understand
He took a way his life with his own hand
Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? See the whole performance at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQzu3Wmn0z0.
C:
. I tossed this movie into our Greencine Queue because it looked interesting and different-- and it was. That made it worthwhile. I appreciated the fact that the women rode their own bikes in this one as opposed to the American biker movies where the women were usually on the back of their man's bike (not saying that's not fun...) Weird ghost-biker concept was cool, but overall, I was a little bored. I wonder if this inspired PT Anderson's raining frogs?
M:
. I get the feeling the filmmakers really thought they were on to something. And I don’t think it worked out like they wanted.
Next up… Christmas Movies of course. Careful readers will already know what three movies we’ll be reviewing in our next column. (a hearty CineSavannah Shout Out to the first reader to accurately identfy them in a reply to this column) For the rest of you, it’ll be a mix of the expected and the not-so-expected Yuletide faves. We’re looking forward to sharing.
And of course, the
Video RX Challenge is now back on. Send us your suggestions for the genre of movies you want us to cover next (Movies with Swordfights and Motorcycle Movies excepted, of course). Deadline for your suggestions will be… let’s say 11:59PM on Christmas Eve (12/24) – that should be easy to remember. Say "Hi" to the Big Guy in Red (not Satan, silly -- but did you notice how they both have the same letters in there name? I think there's a movie in there somewhere...), then watch for our reviews of the winner's genre movies in either our first or second
Video RX column for ’08 (sometime in January).
Please see our column, “Get Free Stuff from CineSavannah and Video RX” if you have any questions about how it all works.
Till then… Ride on!
