Hells Angels on Wheels
by Richard Rush
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, Jana Taylor, Richard Anders, Sabrina ScharfDirector: Richard Rush
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: L?szl? Kov?cs
Editor: William Martin
Writer: R. Wright Campbell
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-12-30
Audience Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only)
Studio: U.S. Films Inc.
Movie Reviews of Hells Angels on Wheels
Movie Review: Hey, it was the Sixties, maaannnn!!!
Summary: 2 Stars
This low-budget, 60's-fare biker movie was OKAY. Two years before his star-making turn in Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson ---- just 30 years old at the time ---- starred here in Hells Angels On Wheels (1967) as Poet, a disgruntled full-service gas station attendant who rides off from his job in protest on his own motorcycle just as a massive fleet of motorcyclists ---- the notorious Hells Angels ---- are passing through his town right by on Main Street. He incidentally ends up getting into a tussle later with one of the Angels, but their leader, Buddy (Adam Roarke) is impressed enough with the way Poet handles himself during the fight that he allows Poet to tag along with the group, and eventually he's accepted as one of them.
This movie is charmingly dated but the story never really seemed to go anywhere. In between pyschedelic-style parties and fleeing from the police, the group spends most of the film just tooling around on their bikes aimlessly, getting into a free-for-all brawl every other scene. The numerous fight scenes are less-than-exciting, a fact that is made worse by the tacky and silly 60's musical score which is decidedly unbefitting of an action sequence. I also didn't much care for the ending, either, which I found to be negative, unresolved and abrupt.
This movie shows its age but overall, I suppose it can be forgiven for its flaws due to its fun, well-stated performances throughout the cast, great outdoor scenerey and shots during the riding sequences and its overall campy, nostalgic charm just based on the fact that it was the sixties. Might still be worth a look if you're a hardcore biker movie fan or a fan of nostalgia like I am, but just don't expect too much from it.
Also stars the very pretty brunette Sabrina Scharf, who would also appear in Easy Rider two years later.
NOT rated X! (It's rated R.)
Summary of Hells Angels on Wheels
When he loses his job, gas station attendant Poet (Academy Award-winner Jack Nicholson) falls in with a rough band of Hells Angels who terrorize Northern California in a hellraising frenzy of parties and gang fights. Choppers, drugs, sex, murder and mayhem ensue as Poet and gang leader Buddy (Adam Roarke) head down a dark road to danger. From acclaimed cult director Richard Rush (The Stunt Man) with cinematography by the legendary L?szl? Kov?cs (Easy Rider, Paper Moon) and music by Stu Phillips (Battlestar Gallactica, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls).This pair of Joe Solomon-produced biker dramas are two of the better examples of the '60s subgenre. Jack Nicholson stars in Hell's Angels on Wheels as a moody cycle-riding gas station attendant adopted by Adam Roarke's gang when he jumps into a friendly bar fight. It's a fairly blatant rip-off of Roger Corman's The Wild Angels, but director Richard Rush (who next teamed up with Nicholson for the counterculture classic Psych-Out) offers up a lifestyle that's less nihilistic than simply meaningless and winds the unlikely friendship between restless Nicholson and rootless Roarke into an inevitable clash over basic philosophical differences (namely, Jack wants Adam's girl, and Adam wants Jack to kowtow to his leadership). William Smith is an unusual hero in Run Angel Run: he's a sellout on the run from vengeful biker clubs up and down the coast. Director Jack Starrett, a former actor in biker movies himself (Hell's Angels on Wheels, among others), creates a taut little picture highlighted by impressive stunts (Smith jumps onto the flat car of a moving train). Smith's brooding, taciturn performance mellows when he takes a job on a rural sheep farm and connects with a career farmer who used to be a barnstorming biker in the 1950s. "I gotta be free man, I gotta fly," confesses Angel, but at what price? Both pictures were cheaply made for quick playoff, but there's an interesting attempt to explore the tension between the thrill of the road and the hollow activity passing for freedom. The set comes in a cool-looking 8 by 12 tin storage container, but the tapes do not have separate video sleeves. --Sean Axmaker
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