Bury Me an Angel

Bury Me an Angel
1971
D: Barbara Peters (also W)

Tough biker chick hunts down her brother's killer

For just her second feature, exploitation director Barbara Peters shot her own script, a more feminist take on the revenge movie. Here the lead is not a once-timid girl who snaps after being raped, but is already a tough broad and is hunting down her brother's murderer. While it certainly has its flaws, this is one of the most ambitious of the chick-themed biker movies, and certainly one of the best. (For the record, though, it's really a stretch to call this a biker movie.)
After leaving a party, Dag (a playing-it-to-the-hilt Dixie Peabody) is witness as an anknown assailant blows her brother Dennis's head off with a shotgun (the cheap FX here aren't bad). Though completely shattered, she does recover. Dag collects up her buddies Jonsie and Bernie (Terry Mace and Clyde Ventura), hops on the bike Den stole for her, and roars off to find the sumbitch.
After questioning various bikers and spending some time on the road, they track the guy to a small town. Here Dag meets nice guy Ken (Dan Haggerty)... Sign after sign has told her that vengeance was not the correct path. Can love finally make her see?
The movie is sure of where it wants to go, if occasionally less sure about how to get there. While there are some great scenes and some pretty cool ideas, like the weird-ass trippy nightmare, fantasy, and flashback scenes (one of which includes music remarkably similar to the "Taxi Driver" climax), it doesn't always work. The scene with Oriental mystic lady Op (who is, oddly, played by Angel Colbert, though Joan Gerber provides the voice), for example, is one of the interesting ideas that really doesn't add much of anything to the movie but time. And Dag, with her cussing, fighting, beer chugging, etc, can get a little over the top. Peters clearly took this movie pretty seriously, and therefore was maybe a little too close to the project to direct.
Still, it's paced fairly well; those scenes that don't work don't detract so much as just fail to add. And things get pretty weird at the end. An original take on a good story, with decent action and a pretty good soundtrack by the East-West Pipeline. And Dixie (who shows some bush, I might add) looks pretty goddamned good indeed on that bike. A solid 4.

The Savage Seven

The Savage Seven
1968
D: Richard Rush

Minor trivia: A very early role for future Laverne and later director Penny Marshall. The pic at the top of the blog page is from this movie, and she can be seen on the far left. Produced by Dick Clark

Bikers and Indians feud both with one another and their common enemy, the bossman of a company town

A bike club makes a stop in an Indian work camp/company town in the middle of nowhere. Though the club initially clashes with the Indians --especially the white-looking Johnnie (Robert Walker Jr)-- they soon find a common enemy in he boss men, Fillmore (Mel Berger) and his muscle, Taggert (Charles Bail). Further friction comes via a possible romance between the (unnamed) club's leader, Kisum (Adam Rourke) and Johnnie's sister Maria (Joanna Frank).
But the club is new in town and not exactly attached to it, and owes it no allegiance. And Fillmore is looking to drive the migrants off so he can make a profit on the land...
That's really about it for the plot, but it does move along nicely. The uneasy and fragile alliance between the bikers and the Indians is built up well, with little padding. They don't go overboard with riding scenes, and the party and fight filler is well done. A satisfying violent climax, somewhat undone by a payoff after that was pretty lacking.
No complaints about casting, except that as usual for the time, Mexican or Indian leads had to look white.
Fillmore and Taggart are appropriately hateable, and the background bikers, like the oaf Bull (Richard Anders) and Joint (Larry Bishop), who's always stoned and keeps a pot plant on his bike ("potted pot, man"), are all good.
The soundtrack is worth noting. The bulk of it is hit/miss soundtrack type music by Barbara Kelly and the Morning Good, and Iron Butterfly add five more. But the standouts, for the sake of weirdness alone, are two by Cream, though you wonder how Jack Bruce got Clapton and Baker on board. "Anyone for Tennis?" is a laid back thing with winds and lyrics that, for random stupidity, blow away even the shit about rainbows with moustaches in "Swlabr" (you can see them mime "Tennis" on a tv appearance here). "Desert Ride," which clocks in at 1:23, is their (Bruce's?) take on a standard biker movie insrto--and it's my favorite Cream song (though I'm not much of a Cream fan).
Overall, nothing special but a solid and reliable 3.

The Cycle Savages

The Cycle Savages
1969
D: Brill Brame (also wrote)

A crazed biker, upset with an artist who's been skectching the gang, seeks to teach him a lesson. Probably inspired by the Angels stomping Hunter Thompson over his book.

Keeg (Bruce Dern) is the leader of Hell's Chosen Few MC (great name), and also a procurer for his pimp brother (Casey Kasem, the film's EP, in a cameo). He gets word that a Polish artist named Romko (Chris Robinson) who's in town has been drawing them. For some reason, he's sure that the drawings could somehow be used as evidence against them for something, and gets angrier and more violent as Romko continues. Keeg threatens him, attacks him, sends chick Lea (Melody Patterson) to spy on him as the bikers ransack his pad, and finally decides to crush his hands, intending to "make it look like an accident"(?!).
Like Keeg needs this shit. He's also got broads to turn out, like the one who gets raped, dosed, and forced to participate in a gross PG-rated orgy.
Nothing happens in the finale that you didn't see coming a mile away, and the whole thing moves along pretty slowly. Aside from the cool instro theme by the Cycle-Mates, the music isn't anything to write home about. A real drag, honestly. Without Dern's over the top lunatic performace, this would be unwatchable; with great struggle he lifts this dud into 2 territory.

Angels Hard as They Come

Angels Hard as They Come
1971
D: Joe Viola

Notable: Jonathan Demme (who produced and co-wrote) and Scott Glenn work together 20 years before "Silence of the Lambs"; first film role for Gary Busey

Hippies and "good" bikers vs "bad" bikers

When their drug deal is interrupted by the cops, Long John (Scott Glenn) and some other Angels far from home decide to hang around a couple days and complete the transaction when the heat dies down. John, Monk (James Igelhart), and Juicer (Don Carerra) meet up with some members of the Dragons, who invite them to party and crash at the old ghost town they'd taken over from the hippies squatting there.
John meets flower chick Astrid (Gilda Texter, later seen riding a cycle nude in "Vanishing Point"), and the two are intrigued by and attracted to each other; unfortunately, the Angels also meet General (Charles Dierkop), the insane and Napoleon-like Dragons president. The paranoid General and his right hand man Axe (Gary Littlejohn) don't much care for the Angels, and begin showing it.
In a darkly shot scene, a Dragon starts to rape Astrid, and John bursts in to her rescue. A chaotic fight ensues, Astrid ends up stabbed to death, and the Angels are blamed. Though they're clearly innocent --and John suggests that maybe the killer was a Dragon looking to take out General-- they're tried in a kangaroo court and held in the old town jail. And Henry (Gary Busey) and the rest of the hippies aren't much help, at least at first, but their club brothers from earlier are starting to wonder where they are.
This is kind of a strange one. It aims fairly high with the violence as entertainment and senselessness of violence themes, but offers some cheap thrills of its own, like trying to have it both ways. The Angels were sentenced to "The Games," which includes being dragged down dirt streets and a game of "chopper ball," where they're surrounded, hands bound, in the desert by pool cue-wielding Dragons on motorcycles. And for all of Henry's anti-violence speeches, it's some serious ass kicking that saves the day.
The pacing is odd as well, moving briskly along here and getting bogged down there. Monk escapes into the desert but the bike breaks down, and the attention to his trek feels like padding to me. It feels, in fact, like it was prolonged just to have some racist on a dune buggy fuck with him for a bit.
Though three Angels are captured, it almost seems like it's just Glenn, who takes the role seriously and it shows. Monk ends up on his own, and Juicer is a pretty thin character, played by Don Carerra in a performance you'll never remember. Kristofferson lookalike Dierkop has a blast as the completely insane General, and Littlejohn is always reliably greasy. Some good minor bikers as well, like John Raymond Taylor as Crab (because...oh, you know). Dirty Denny, the first biker seen, has three credits under three names. Three checks? Doubtful.
Some of the music is ok, with a neat fuzz & tablas instro into the theme song, which goes for a Band type sound (with Levon Helm type vocals even). I should mention somewhere that there are some pretty nice titties in this one.
For Scott Glenn's performance (and those titties), "Angels Hard as They Come" gets a 3.5.