Outlaw biker film


The outlaw biker film is a film genre that portrays its characters as motorcycle riding rebels. The characters are usually members of an outlaw motorcycle club.

History

Outlaw biker clubs formed in the late 1940s on the West Coast after the end of World War II. Their culture was first popularized in the Marlon Brando film The Wild One, which tells a story based very loosely on actual events. The film's success was followed by a string of low-budget exploitation films aimed at a teenage audience such as Motorcycle Gang and The Hot Angel. But the genre really took off in the mid-1960s, after the Hells Angels motorcycle club became prominent in the media, in particular, after Hunter S. Thompson's book was published.

Films of the 1960s

In 1965, director Russ Meyer made Motorpsycho, an obscure film about an evil motorcycle gang led by a disturbed Vietnam War veteran. In 1966, American International Pictures released The Wild Angels with Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Nancy Sinatra. This film, aimed at the teenage drive-in crowd, was a surprise hit and a new exploitation film subgenre was born. AIP dominated the market and quickly released a semi-sequel Devil's Angels starring actor-director John Cassavetes and The Glory Stompers with Dennis Hopper in 1967.
In 1968, AIP produced The Mini-Skirt Mob, Angels from Hell, and The Savage Seven. The company made five more biker gang films: Hell's Belles, Hell's Angels '69, Angel Unchained, The Hard Ride, and Chrome and Hot Leather.
AIP and Fanfare Films also co-produced The Born Losers. Fanfare made Hells Angels on Wheels with Jack Nicholson, Run, Angel, Run!, Wild Wheels, and Nam's Angels.
Other small independent filmmakers went on to produce dozens of low-budget biker films until the trend dissipated in the early '70s. Crown International produced and/or distributed Wild Rebels, The Hellcats, The Sidehackers, Wild Riders, and Pink Angels. Independent-International Pictures Corp. produced three films in this genre directed by Al Adamson – Satan's Sadists, Hell's Bloody Devils, and Angels' Wild Women.
The Rebel Rousers featured Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Harry Dean Stanton. Dern also starred as a sadistic gang leader in The Cycle Savages. In 1969, Peter Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson teamed up on the classic "hippie biker" movie, Easy Rider, the antithesis of the violent biker-gang genre.
Sonny Barger, founder of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels, was a consultant on several films. He and other gang members appeared as extras in Hells Angels on Wheels and Hell's Angels '69. The Hells Angels appeared as extras playing a gang called the Las Vegas Hotdoggers in the Roger Corman film Naked Angels starring Michael Greene.

''The Born Losers''

The Born Losers introduced Tom Laughlin's character Billy Jack. Unable to get his Billy Jack script produced, Laughlin wrote and directed The Born Losers to capitalize on the current biker movie trend. The story was inspired by news reports of the Hells Angels terrorizing a California community. As a cost-saving measure, a stunt scene of a motorcycle crashing into a pond was taken from co-producer AIP's comedy The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.
The Born Losers is also significant for its social criticism and portrayal of the biker gang as a force of pure, unredeemable evil. Here, for the first time, a lone hero stands up to, and ultimately defeats, the gang. Prior to this, the majority of the films in this genre imitated The Wild One with a sympathetic gang member who ultimately rejects the outlaw biker lifestyle. Prime examples are the Fonda character in The Wild Angels, Jack Nicholson in Hells Angels on Wheels, and Joe Namath in C.C. and Company.
Jack Starrett has the role of a tough-talking police officer. He played essentially the same character in Hells Angels on Wheels and Angels from Hell. Starrett was also in Hell's Bloody Devils, and directed Run, Angel, Run . In Nam's Angels the bikers are portrayed as patriotic heroes sent on a rescue mission to Vietnam.

Novelty biker films

A number of novelty films were made featuring all-female biker gangs such as The Hellcats aka Biker Babes, She-Devils on Wheels, The Mini-Skirt Mob with Sherry Jackson and Harry Dean Stanton, Sisters in Leather with Pat Barrington, Angels' Wild Women, Cycle Vixens, and Chrome Angels.
The Pink Angels is a somewhat campy film about a gang of homosexual bikers who head down the coast to attend a drag ball. Bury Me an Angel is a revenge story featuring a female biker. Angels' Wild Women centers around a group of tough female bikers who dominate men and eventually go a revenge-driven rampage. The story was changed after the producers found theaters were no longer interested in traditional biker films. Inspired by the popularity of Roger Corman's The Big Doll House, a violent women in prison film with Pam Grier, new scenes were added featuring aggressive female bikers and a Pam Grier lookalike was added to the cast. The reworked and retitled film was a box office success.
In Japan, female biker films became popular starting with ' . This trend was part of the sukeban subgenre of Toei's "Pinky violence" style of Pink film. The series continued with ', ', ' and Alleycat Rock: Crazy Riders '71. Another similar series of exploitation films with female bikers includes ', ' , and Girl Boss Guerilla.

The 1970s to the present

In 1970, Roger Corman left AIP to form New World Pictures which released Angels Die Hard, Angels Hard as They Come, and Bury Me an Angel.
As the trend began to lose momentum, filmmakers started to create horror hybrids such as Werewolves on Wheels and Blood Freak. The British horror film Psychomania involves a biker gang that makes a pact with the devil to obtain immortality.
Black motorcycle gangs appeared in a few blaxploitation films such as The Black Angels and The Black Six.
The biker gang ethos also featured strongly in the famed low budget Australian production Mad Max, with the film spawning the real-life subculture of survival bikes.
By the late 1980s, the once shocking and controversial genre became an object of campy humor in horror-comedies such as Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, and Biker Zombies.
Beyond the Law is based on a true story and centers on Dan Saxon, an undercover cop who infiltrates a group of criminal outlaw bikers. Larry Ferguson wrote the screenplay after reading the article "Undercover Angel" by Lawrence Linderman in the July, 1981 issue of Playboy on an undercover agent named Dan Black.
2000 film Hochelaga, a French-Canadian movie by Michel Jetté that depicts biker gang culture and activity in Montréal, Québec during the Québec Biker War of the late 90s and early 2000s.
2003 film Biker Boyz, starring Laurence Fishburne and Djimon Hounsou, depicts illegal bike racing gangs, although neither are criminals.
2004 film Torque, which features Adam Scott, Martin Henderson and Ice Cube, is about a biker who is faced by a rival gang leader for taking his bikes, and is then framed for the murder of a member of a third gang.
Quentin Tarantino served as executive producer on Hell Ride starring Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen. This is an homage to the motorcycle gang films of the past. It was written and directed by Larry Bishop, who acted in a number of biker films such as The Savage Seven. Tarantino is a noted fan of the Australian biker movie, Stone.
Sons of Anarchy is an American television drama series about a California motorcycle club. The series premiered on September 3, 2008, on cable network FX.
The documentary Biker Mania includes a compilation of theater trailers and footage that tracks the history of the genre from the 1950s to the present.
Edward Winterhalder is the subject of a feature-length documentary movie about the outlaw biker lifestyle that is being filmed in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Dubai.

Cultural references and parodies

After the release of The Wild One, the image of the motorcycle gang, particularly the Marlon Brando character, inspired many imitators and satires in films and television shows.

Film