(American International Pictures, 1968)

We first met Adam Roarke in a one-sided communion with the big screen, back when the lanky Brooklyner was one of the brighter lights of the biker flicks. Roarke was easily the most persuasive rebellious leading man in the motorcycle movies,  a genre that required an attitude of defiance. Dennis Hopper had the attitude down in spades, Peter Fonda struck all the right poses and Jack Nicholson brought a consummate dramatic skill to any old role at all --- but Roarke seemed the most genuine... continue reading

(Mayflower Pictures, 1968)

Among those who love low-budget and exploitation films, Chicago’s Herschell Gordon Lewis will forever be known as the Godfather of Gore, having created -- with his expansive partner David F. Friedman -- the first real “gore” picture. That was  1963’s Blood Feast, a ground-breaking, stomach-churning splatterfest featuring a deranged Egyptian caterer named Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) who uses the body parts of women to create his specialty, “Egyptian Feasts.”... continue reading

(American International Pictures,1967)
Noteworthy chiefly as one of the quick-and-cheap indulgences that helped prepare Dennis Hopper for the cheap but slow-burning Easy Rider (1969), director Anthony Lanza's The Glory Stompers also boasts one of the more colorful titles in the biker-flick canon, as well as a colorful cast that includes former movie Tarzan Jock Mahoney and radio’s famed Mr. Top 40 Countdown, Casey Kasem, as a character named, appropriately enough, Mouth. Story-wise, The Glory Stompers carries a ring of the perpetual struggle of the sacred vs. the profane, with a bracing suggestion that the profane might even be winning... continue reading

(American International Pictures, 1967)
Film fans and historians tend to see biker movies as not much more than an impersonal mass of machinery and muscle, fueled with twangy power-chord rock `n` roll and garnished with cheesecake glamour. But even such a monolithic genre has its outcroppings of individualistic style and attitude, and they usually occur where least expected --- like the third entry in American International Pictures’ array of cyclists-vs.-the-System pictures. That’s Born Losers, whose acquisition served to free famed cheap-film mogul Roger Corman’s stable of artists for other pursuits by allowing star player Tom Laughlin the additional responsibilities of producing, directing, and writing... continue reading

Belgian poster or Helld Angels on Wheels  (U.S. Films, 1967)

The roaring boxoffice success of The Wild Angels churned up a lot of things in its wake, including a lawsuit from the real-life Hell’s Angels claiming that not one actual member of their club appeared in the movie, despite massive publicity to the contrary. The Angels sued for a million and settled for ten thousand, but some of them still weren’t happy about what they perceived as an out-and-out besmirching of their name. One of the unhappiest was Sonny Barger, president of the Oakland Hell’s Angels, one of the earliest and best-known Hell’s Angels chapters. And, being a man of action, he did something about it... continue reading

“The picture you are about to see will shock and perhaps anger you. Although the events and characters are fictitious, the story is a reflection of our times.” -- from the prologue to The Wild Angels

Marlon Brando had scored with The Wild One, Anthony Quinn had staged The Wild Party (1956) and Elvis Presley had gone Wild in the Country (1961) by the time Roger Corman kick-started the big screen's cycle-gang machinery with The Wild Angels... continue reading

(also known as MOTORPSYCHO! and MOTOR-PSYCHO!)  Eve Productions, 1965
“If [Russ] Meyer is attempting a portrait of some of the more depraved elements of today’s society, he succeeds triumphantly in making his point. As noted, however, he weakens his social comment when all of his women are costumed in plunging, bulging or bursting necklines ....” -- James Powers, The Hollywood Reporter, in a review of Motor Psycho, 1965 continue reading

MOTORCYCLE GANG (American International Pictures, 1957)
Here we have the Goofus and Gallant of cyclist movies. A 78-minute pageant of action-filled mayhem cradles about half an hour's worth of moralizing in Edward L. Cahn's Motorcycle Gang, a fogbound and rickety bridge leading from The Wild One to somewhere near The Wild Angels... continue reading

THE WILD ONE (Columbia Pictures, 1954)
The Wild One, the seminal biker picture, casts a lengthening shadow that stretches from 1954 into the present day, its influence echoing not only through the motorcycle-movie craze of 15 years later but also the emergence of the juvenile-delinquency picture, which began in earnest almost immediately after Marlon Brando and his leather-jacketed comrades roared onto the screen... continue reading

Brought to you by the team behind Brittown and Choppertown, we hear that the editing for the new film The Harbortown Bobber is coming along great and we have been asked to share the teaser with everybody... continue reading

Posted by: Nick Maggio
After watching this movie, it occurred to me, that the title, On Any Sunday, was not in reference to when you could find these men out on the tracks or in the desert, but something much more... continue reading