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| The exploitative poster for Richard Rush's Hells Angels on Wheels; regrettably, the only thing really 'shattering' about the film is its idiocy |
A vague account of a disgruntled gas attendant (a then unestablished Jack Nicholson (Wolf (1994))), who quits the job and instead begins hanging out with a Californian Hells Angels biker troupe, who have raucous parties, throw beers at each other and say 'fuck you' to the law. He is, needless to say (...), very attracted to this lifestyle and behavior, and begins biking around with these fellows. He also falls for a despicable, loose, hang-around hippie, who is pregnant with the lead biker's child but still only wants to bike and sleep around.
Hells Angels on Wheels is written by R. Wright Campbell (Teenage Cave Man (1958)) and directed by Richard Rush (Too Soon to Love (1960)). It is most renowned for being an also Nicholson-starring precursor of Easy Rider (1969), the groundbreaking outlaw biker film that caused a radical change in Hollywood, which meant more power to younger directors and the values and interests of the younger generation, an exciting wave known as New Hollywood.
In itself, Wheels, however, is a really poor film.
It is decidedly not a plot movie: More so, it is a portrayal of the late 1960s biker milieu, a group hierarchy where individual sensitivities, common knowledge and intelligence yield to caveman-like behavior.
Long stretches of the movie is simply landscape that the pack ride through, - and mind you that these are probably the most likable minutes of Hells Angels on Wheels. Other long scenes include fist-fighting, body-painting, beer-throwing, hill-riding, and then countless scenes where Nicholson's character 'Poet' endears himself the the 'Angels' or struggles with the biking mentality. His character nears the group much like a pre-school boy would try to get involved with a gang of cool kids in the school yard without much awareness of his own situation or life in general.
The script is terrible, and the portrayed group are all brazen idiots. Only due to the natural estrangement that the decades passed since the film was made can one sit through it without being too annoyed. The ending is one more terrible thing about the flick and very indicative of its entire bizarre nature: SPOILER Finally for the first time really, Nicholson's character seems induced to do something actively as an individual, when - BAM - 'The end' flies across the screen. What he was about to do was apparently not that important anyway.
Hells Angels on Wheels is a bit of curiosa item from the glorified late 60s era. If you decide to watch it, it is highly recommended to have something else to do while watching it, like eating, writing, reading or all of these things.
Watch three minutes of the film's beginning here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: 3 mil. $ (North-American rentals only)
= Uncertain - but certainly a huge hit
[Hells Angels on Wheels premiered as a drive-in theater engagement in February (USA) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including San Francisco. Oakland, California Hells Angels chapter president Ralph 'Sonny' Barger consulted for the film and appears in an early scene (without lines.) Details about the film's theatrical performance are not to be found online, but the alleged 3 mil. $ rental gross, stemming from Roger Corman and Jim Jerome's 1990 book How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, would likely make the low-budget exploitation movie a huge hit. It was released in a handful of other Western markets, two of them many years later. Roger Ebert gave it a 2.5/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. Rush returned with Thunder Alley (1967). Adam Roarke (Hell's Belles (1969)) returned in El Dorado (1967), Nicholson with an uncredited bit part in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967); and Sabrina Scharf (Mannix (1968-69)) in Waterhole #3 (1967). 2,640 Rotten Tomatoes users have given Hells Angels on Wheels a 2.94/5 average rating.]
What do you think of Hells Angels on Wheels?
