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 (1953), which tells a story based very loosely on actual events, the 1947 Hollister riot. The film's success was followed by a string of low-budget exploitation films aimed at a teenage audience such as Motorcycle Gang (1957) and The Hot Angel (1958). 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 Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966) was published.
Films of the 1960s
In 1965, director Russ Meyer made Motorpsycho (aka Motor Psycho), an obscure film about an evil motorcycle gang led by a disturbed Vietnam War veteran. In 1966, American International Pictures (AIP) 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 film debut of actress/director Penny Marshall). The company made five more biker gang films: Hell's Belles (1969), Hell's Angels '69 (1969), Angel Unchained (1970), The Hard Ride (1971), and Chrome and Hot Leather (1971).
AIP and Fanfare Films also co-produced The Born Losers (1967). Fanfare made Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) with Jack Nicholson, Run, Angel, Run! (1969), Wild Wheels (1969), and Nam's Angels (1970).
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 (1967), The Hellcats (1968), The Sidehackers (1969), Wild Riders (1971), and Pink Angels (1972). Independent-International Pictures Corp. produced three films in this genre directed by Al Adamson – Satan's Sadists (1969), Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), and Angels' Wild Women (1972).
The Rebel Rousers (filmed 1967, released 1970) featured Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Harry Dean Stanton. Dern also starred as a sadistic gang leader in The Cycle Savages (1970). 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 (1969) starring Michael Greene.
The Born Losers
The Born Losers (1967) 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 (which finally allowed him to make Billy Jack in 1971). 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 (1966).
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 (the reluctant leader or a new 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 (1967), and Joe Namath in C.C. and Company (1970).
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 (1968). Starrett was also in Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), and directed Run, Angel, Run (1969) . In Nam's Angels (1970) the bikers are portrayed as patriotic heroes sent on a rescue mission to Vietnam.