Wild Angels, The (1966)

“Loser” (Bruce Dern) rides with sulky nihilist “Blues” (Peter Fonda) and his Nazi-loving degenerate scum who only want to ride their machines “without being hassled by The Man”, be free to do what they wanna do, “get loaded” and have a good time. The bikers want to be free to do what they want to do, but their freedom includes the right to kick other people’s heads in and rape women as they see fit.

All well and good, but when ol’ Loser gets shot in the back by the police after rumbling with some Mexicans and stealing a police motorbike, his buddies think it would be a gas to bust him out of the hospital, with the result that he dies.

From here on in it gets worse for Loser as his pals drag his lifeless carcass into a small-town church (with his coffin draped in a swastika flag), prop him up with a joint in his dead mouth, and get a reluctant preacher to take the service. But his talk of God angers Blues, who delivers his famous “And we want to get loaded!” speech – before the assembled throng wreck the church, beat up the preacher, gang rape Loser’s old lady, Gaysh (Diane Ladd), fight, drink and smoke dope.

This exploitation expose, scripted by Charles B. Griffith, was very controversial in its day for its violence and nihilistic attitude. It also started a whole cycle (pardon the pun) of Hell’s Angels movies, and can also be seen as the precursor to Easy Rider. Real-life Hell’s Angels from Venice, California participated in the making of the film.

Heavenly Blues
Peter Fonda
Mike ‘Monkey’
Nancy Sinatra
Joe ‘Loser’ Kearns
Bruce Dern
Gaysh
Diane Ladd
Dear John
Buck Taylor
Medic
Norman Alden
Pigmy
Michael J. Pollard
Joint
Lou Procopio
Momma Monahan
Joan Shawlee
Frankenstein
Marc Cavell
Bull Puckey
Coby Denton
Preacher
Frank Maxwell
Suzie
Gayle Hunnicutt

Director
Roger Corman

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