Classic Bike Movies (BFS)

 

                                                         Picture:     Sound:    Extras:     Film:

Evel Knievel (1972)                              C              C             D           C

C.C. and Company (1970)                     C-             C             D           C-

Angels Hard As They Come (1971)         C-             C-           D           D

 

 

Marvin Chomsky managed to get Sue Lyon, Bert Freed, and Rod Cameron to appear in George Hamilton’s self-produced/self-starrer that he hoped would boost his theatrical film career.  Unfortunately, Evel Knievel is very average and Hamilton is not bad in the role, but he eventually lands up playing himself.  At least there are some unintended hoots here.  Chomsky was a T.V. veteran of shows like Wild, Wild, West, the original Star Trek, Name of the Game and Hawaii 5-0, bringing at least a sense of seriousness later such films (including the awful Viva Knievel) had.  He went back to TV, peaking with the later installments of the mega-hit TV mini-series Roots.

 

Also capable television director Seymour Robbie (Honey West, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Green Hornet) directs one of producer Allan Carr’s (Grease) earliest attempt at a hit, putting still-popular Joe Namath as a biker.  At least he was not playing a football star, but this often feels like a rehearsal for Carr’s big camp bomb Can’t Stop The Music (1980).  It offers an interesting cast with the likes of Ann-Margaret, William Smith, Greg Mullavey, Sid Haig, Bruce Glover, and Jennifer Billingsley.  Co-producer Roger Smith wrote the pointless screenplay with even more pointless performances.  Is this one of the reasons why Oliver Stone cast Ann-Margaret in Any Given Sunday?  If so, why?  Her casting and the use of the song “C.C. Rider” is a lame attempt to evoke Namath as a non-Musical Elvis Presley in combination with Ann-Margaret’s presence is totally lame.  Avco Embassy originally released the film, but recovered to become one of the most interesting independents of the 1970s.  Whether this is the R or PG cut, who knows, but this one would be PG-13 today.  Either way, it drags and it is pointless, with an especially stupid ending.  Robbie went back to TV and did far better, working on some of the most memorable episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Paper Chase, Wonder Woman, and Hart to Hart.

 

Jonathan Demme produced co-wrote Angels Hard As They Come with director Joe Viola.  This is Demme’s spoof of biker films trying to be Kurosawa’s Rashomon, but is a mess.  Scott Glenn, Gary Busey (in his film debut), and Larry Tucker are a few of the only faces you will recognize.  They cannot possibly save this mess.  If you want the real Rashomon, Criterion did a DVD and we reviewed it.  This is lame exploitation that is not even good on that level, the kind that made Demme’s recent Truth About Charlie so pathetic.  I will not even blame Roger Corman.  Stephen Katz could not make this look good, even with future cinematography ace Caleb Deschannel doing addition camerawork.

 

All these films represent attempts to capitalize on Easy Rider, which Dennis Hopper had just directed in 1969.  None were hits, though all are now curios.  All full frame films here, shot in flat 35mmm and with optical mono, BFS decided to put these on the DVD is order of how the picture and sound gets worse.  They are all on the DVD in color, all in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.  As bad as the sound is here, I doubt much could be improved, and should not in the case of the Namath disaster.

 

These are all disasters, wasting much talent when it was available, for no good reason.  As hard as it is to believe, recent films about bikes have been worse, especially co-opted by ad placements, which are rarely a problem here.  The likes of Biker Boyz and especially Torque have big budgets and Major studio support, but are actually phonier and less accomplished than the disasters above.  At least the sex of these films has not been co-opted by an MTV look.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo