Many fans of just about rock and roll Peter Fonda is known primarily as Wyatt from the most famous biker movie of all time – Easy Rider. But at the same time, very few people know the fact that three years before the Careless Rider, The Wild Angels movie was released – and it was The Wild Angels that became the first film because of which Comrade Fonda is popularly associated with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and the sixties. Moreover, it was thanks to The Wild Angels that the world generally saw a Carefree Rider: the fact is that Peter Fonda was still those lovers of the counterculture, and it was during the promotion of his other film, The Trip, Fonda left his autograph on a freeze frame of The Wild Angels. That shot depicted Peter himself on the same motorcycle with Bruce Dern, and looking at that particular picture, Fonda thought about making a movie about two cats dissecting on bikes…
It’s also worth mentioning that, in my opinion, The Wild Angels have a much better cast than the Carefree Rider. In addition to Fonda himself, Wild Angels took part in the film: Nancy Sinatra (the daughter of the same Frank Sinatra, two years after The Wild Angels will be on the screen side by side with Elvis Presley), the already mentioned Bruce Dern (you may not know his films, but you definitely saw him in Quentin Tarantino’s Disgusting Eight) and Michael Jay Pollard (his very specific appearance is probably familiar to many fans of cinema). And if you believe the credits at the beginning of the film and the materials used for the PR of this film, then many of the supporting roles were played by The Wild Angels from California, as well as bikers from the Coffin Cheaters club.
Considering all of the above, I think the first thing to say is that you should not compare Wild Angels and Easy Rider. These films are simply too different – yes, many parallels can be drawn between them, but in the end, Easy Rider is still a road movie, and Wild Angels is more of a drama with an admixture of action. Comparing a road movie with something that is not a road movie is generally not very correct, because the genre of “road movie” is very specific in itself. Therefore, The Wild Angels, being an action movie, even if only for a small part of themselves, naturally provide more action than a Careless Rider. So in terms of evaluating these films, it’s better to say this: Easy Rider has become, if not the first among its genre, then one of the first definitely. Wild Angels did not become such a big icon. This film did not open a niche of biker cinema, as The Wild One did back in ’53, and does not particularly stand out among the many other biker films and action movies of that time. At least one film critic, almost in plain text, appreciated Wild Angels only with the phrase “it will do for a beer.”
Nevertheless, in certain circles, this film still took a place that may not be at the very top, but certainly above the average quality mark. The mere fact that the Wild Angels group took its name in honor of this film says a lot. Yes, and some moments of this film are really powerful, and the most-the most of them can be called the dialogue of the Blues and the priest, which was used as a sample by countless people in all fields of culture.
Here is the most recent example of using this dialogue for you: the trailer for the 2015 Need For Speed game – in fact, it is almost entirely voiced by Peter Fonda. It’s just a pity that I wouldn’t even install a game on my computer that requires a constant Internet connection for anything in the world. A great example of how cunning marketers are trying to lure lovers of old roads to the path of new standards. Nevertheless, the trailer still turned out to be very competent: it is difficult to imagine something more symbolizing the principles of the rebels for no reason at once throughout the second half of the previous century than the biker monologue from the film of the 60s and the motives of the iconic track Gangsta’s Paradise of the late 90s.
Well, I think it’s time to finally tell you what the Wild Angels movie itself is. So, without looking at the names in the cast and other films, The Wild Angels is a very leisurely biker-themed drama. Honestly, in some places the film looks almost like a documentary – as if some guy just picked up a camera and decided to ride with the Hells Angels one day. And these very Hells Angels ride their bikes, have fun, get into trouble with the police and some other guys – in general, they do all the things that bikers do. Intersperses of action often move the plot, and in places they even look… it’s a little inappropriate, or something: the very illusion that all this is not a documentary is being broken, and the man with the camera is not a man with a camera at all, but a professional cameraman.
All the actors on the screen play quite well, except perhaps Nancy Sinatra, who has never been much of an actress, but she does not spoil the overall impression of the film. The only complaint about acting is a certain one… restraint, or something. Coupled with the work of the operator, who performs his work very professionally, but still restrained, not trying to pick out any particularly beautiful and successful plans, all this only adds to the feeling that the movie is documentary: people seem to have become uncomfortable from the fact that a man with a camera suddenly got into their daily life. And the guy with the camera, in fact, only shoots them, without being distracted by anything else, like beautiful landscapes and other inserts peculiar to feature films. If there were any, then I didn’t really remember them, but I remember every emotional outburst very well: because of the restraint already mentioned, there are not so many emotional moments in The Wild Angels. All this, however, works only in favor of the film.
I don’t know if it’s even worth talking about the fact that a whole scattering of Harley-Davidson motorcycles appear on the screen, which are very often present in the frame.As in almost any biker movie, there are a lot of cars in Wild Angels from the most important icon of the American motorcycle industry, and Peter Fonda himself saddles the Panhead for the first time – this engine will be in his motorcycle in the movie Easy Rider. But what’s really worth saying a few words about is the soundtrack, which was released as a separate disc and, oddly enough, is present in its entirety even on Yandex.Music. Yes, most of the tracks may not be particularly impressive, but the main character’s theme alone – Blue’s Theme – earns the film at least one star for the soundtrack.
In the end, I can’t help but mention that the government of the free and democratic USA in ’66 tried to ban the screening of Wild Angels at the Venice Film Festival, under the pretext that the film “does not show America as it is.” Should this fact somehow affect the perception of the film? I don’t know. Anyway, as a result, personally, although I myself said that it was completely wrong to compare such different films, I liked Wild Angels more than Easy Rider. How accurate my assessment is is up to you to judge. To do this, of course, you need to watch both films, but I think you won’t mind.
