The Born Losers (1967)

One of my favourite biker movies of all times is a typical product of the golden period that opened right after Roger Corman kicked the door out with "The Wild Angels" provoking a maniacal craze of wacky B-flicks featuring rebellious, leather-clad, chopper riding brutes in every titillating scenario known to a man. Although from today's perspective biker genre was a rather mixed bag with only few off-beat productions entertaining enough to become classics and a lot of crap I wouldn't even use in a private, toilet screening, it gave a lot of water to 70's gangsploitation, passed primitivist, scruffy esethetics to post-apocalyptic movies like "Mad Max" and last but not least became a direct inspiration for "Easy Rider" (the ultimate biker movie in a way).

"The Born Losers" was supposed to be a genuine Billy Jack workout initially, but as Tom Laughlin coudn't find financing for his first draft, he decided to take AIP alley and amp it up with a bunch of nasty biker characters. As Samuel Zarkoff and Jim Nicholson were rolling high at that time, flush with cash from Corman's international success of "The Wild Angels", they wanted to see some more golden eggs – biker movie was the word of the day! The same year "Rebel Rousers" with Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern was made (icky shit released in 1970!) and also "Devil's Angels", both for AIP. There would be at least 20 or 30 other takes on the genre, produced till the end of the 60's by all independent American film companies. Most of them as dull as it gets with joke of a script, cheapish backdrop and waiters-to-actors cast over night. However, even these dumb chunks of schlock get hugged by a bunch of biker movie aficionados.



While later films with Billy Jack are better remebered for their saucy, martial arts action, "The Born Losers" carries a real story or even two stories, roughly mingled together as it's hard to figure out which one is the main plot. Half-indian, ex green beret and survival specialist, Billy Jack just came back from Vietnam and he treks through the wilderness eating raw fish, but soon he'll have to hit L.A. to wire some dear cash... in the end he's forced to sell his jeep for a cup of piss, but that's the way it is, man! Unfortunately enough Born To Lose MC are rumbling through the hood ("getting their kicks from torture and violence" again) and they accidentally cross their dicks with Billy Jack, who takes the fuckers, but is fined by the court afterwards for using the rifle to shoot one of the brutes. Hence the message is coined: "Doing good will get you nothing, but trouble".

But the bikers will have a new challenge soon when they pull a biker girl in white bikini off two-lane blacktop by fixing the road sign and trapping her in dead end (some slapstick humour here). As they find out, she's a proper child of the social revolution and seeing a brutal rape going down any minute, she chooses to be nice and enter their pad for the official initiation. When a proposition of making it out on acid and speed cannot be met as boys are tapped out, she flees knocking out one of the bikers first. They will go after, catch and pork her, as well as three other city girls the same day. From that point it's clear, that these bikers do not obey, they piss gasoline & shit nails in your face, hijack police cars and also terrorize victims when a case is filed against them in court. They are bad motherfuckers with guns, rifles and nazi helmets flashing with lastest, fashionable outfits like black turtlenecks, native ponchos, denim cuts and badges glorifying happy life on drugs.

Stoners, dropouts, drunks and scumbags is how bikers are drawn here and their prez is played by Jeremy Slate. They have everybody by the pubes and only Billy Jack is not gonna shit his pants – that's basically the main line. The rest is a usual mixture of AIP's exploitative salt & pepper. Some social references to late 60's psychedelic culture, ridiculous, over the top acting, eclectic style of directing, which blends para-documentary realism with 300 cuts in one day Corman's quickie, mild nudity (always edited in with violence scenes) and proto-punk (or post-beatnik?) costumes. Honestly, this is a long and "elaborate" film, which calls for a good bong. Genre fans will have definitely plenty of fun checking out Born To Lose MC vs. Billy Jack and The Girl In White Bikini plot. I'm not sure if it's laid-back vibe or its salacious, roguish musings – kind of exploitation surrealism – but every new twist helps you pull through it till the end. Davie Allan & The Arrows biker sound themes are nice touch as well. You're not gonna go further up from here in the genre, at least not very often.

Hells Angels On Wheels (1967)

One of the most famous 60’s biker flicks, still being around due to Jack Nicholson’s leading act and the original Hell’s Angels doing cameo ride while the film credits are rolling. In fact, it was the first feature movie in which Hell’s Angels MC appeared – for about one minute we can clearly see Sonny Barger and the Oakland’s chapter. Directed by Richard Rush, who later scored such cinematic treasures as "Psych-Out" (1968) or "Getting Straight" (1970) and photographed by Laszlo Kovacs (credited in movie as Leslie), who obviously made a great film career later on by delivering a string of top notch movies including contercultural classic "Easy Rider" (1969), "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), "Harold and Maude" (1971) and "Shampoo" (1975), it tapped effortlessly into the youth market. In fact this duo just couldn’t go wrong, hence the effect of their work has retained a minor cult status till today.

When the movie hit US drive-ins in 1967, distributed by AIP, it became a wildly successful endeavour. It got very favourable press reviews praising Nicholson’s role and director’s talent for picturing a society in transition. These opinions even now hold up, but only to a certain point. Rush definitely filled well his drawing, stylishly boiling the biker mixture of violent soul, rebellious attitude and dedication to booze, drugs and sex, but on the other hand became at large limited by the exploitative frame – this was after all nothing more, but a B-movie flash. Jack Nicholson’s acting is fairly correct, but it’s nothing you couldn’t live without as it seems that his smaller role in Monte Hellman’s acid western – "The Shooting" (released the same year) was performed with much more passion and dedication.



However, as a drive-in biker flick "Hells Angels On Wheels" passes full-on, only slightly falling behind such pictures as "The Born Losers" (1967) or "Hell’s Belles" (1969), which are kept in my mind as the best biker movies of the epoch. This is the shit to be recommended to any genre fan as it can hardly do any damage. The script draws a type of middle class dropout & biker – Poet (Jack Nicholson), who works as a gas station attendant, but cannot hold his horses enought o keep the job and casually joins the Hells Angels party when fired over verbal abuse of a customer. Although young and restless, Poet is still kind of uptight, hanging between the world of traditional morality and the revolutionary fire of chopper’s engine. This is spelled out by a biker mama, whom he tries to bed and then convince to drop the club, but who’s too deeply grounded in the violent world of MC to be up for a fresh start with a half-straight chap. Not an unique idea, but good enough for Jack Nicholson’s fans, who will find this role quite similar to his later performance in "Five Easy Pieces".

As the story drags on, we witness random brutality of the MC causing a fatal accident, which becomes a key for the plot. We face police prosecution against the club, we ride through California’s roads and deserts, see a genuine biker wedding and Poet’s biker baptism when he’s accepted as a prospect for the club. Although Poet becomes an officially accepted Hells Angels member eventually, tension he holds on to never goes away though causing open rivalry with club’s prez – Buddy (Adam Roarke) and opening a door to the dramatic finale marked with a nasty cock fight, which leads to a tragedy. The last scene – I need to stress clearly – is a real blunder in my opinion as it's clumsily brushing off this whole edgy vibe built beforehand leaving the viewer crying "why like this?" There are some other equally lame story solutions here, but nothing bugs me like this one.

Nevertheless, the thing worthy a genuine acclaim in "Hells Angels On Wheels" is Kovacs’ cinematography. A fluid, natural and very spot-on frames keep you in all the time. A real artist’s eye gives you the right perspective no matter if it’s a bar brawl, if they’re choppers riding in lines or intimate moments of the main characters. Although this was a time when Kovacs started getting weary of shooting exploitation movies, he gave them all he got anyway, for which these few pictures are so rewarding and easily separable from the concurrent, but sloppily made low budget lot. As the legend says, this movie became Sonny Barger’s favourite biker flick at that time. We might only wonder if he changed his mind after scoring "The Hells Angels '69" two years later?

The President's Analyst (1967)

60’s not only paved the way for violent bursting gangster cinema and higly engaging auteur dramas tracking the widening generation crack, but also gave birth to a new sort of comedies playing or spoofing on middle class lifestyle, conservative beliefs and finally on their motherland – the counterculture. A reason inviting new forms was rapidly transforming market itself, into which big Hollywood productions suddenly couldn’t tap no more. When high budget lollipop musicals and melodramas were losing money, studio moguls were desperate to replace them with anything, that would keep them going, hence they were accepting ideas, which before would be turned down without even reading the script.

"The President’s Analyst" was one of these movies and although accepted for production by Paramount – a half-independent studio for Hollywood standards at that time – it was still subversive enough to make high-rolling fatties nervous. Written and directed by Theodore J. Flicker, till that time a well doing TV craftsman, it boiled up a whole range of creative ideas, that in theory would fry rebellious brains of Baby Boomers entering the cinema. However, soon after kicking off the production, reality shock sobered up the artist when FBI demanded their name to be dropped from the movie concerned about their image – since 1963 they were slowly becoming one of the most hated American institutions among the hipsters, acid heads and leftists, commonly accused of messing up with JFK kill. The names of key agencies in the script were hence replaced by silly sounding, but still effective in direct alluding – FBR and CBR.



Nevertheless, this exceptionally funny, off-beat comedy still managed to come across with it’s agenda standing out as one of the best genre movies of it’s time, which though initially flopped, developed a real cult with time. The plot concerns sudden shift in Dr. Schaefer’s life – a genuine New York psychiatrist played by James Coburn, strongly attached to his academic methods. He’s just passed a dilligence rundown, ordered by FBR and CBR, which made him effectively the official US president’s psychoanalyst. He promptly moves to Washington to start his new assignment, but after short period of high stress on-call work, due to being privy to the biggest national secrets he becomes extremly edgy and suspicious of everything around him developing heavy paranoia. Eventually he suffers a nervous breakdown and flees the capital with randomly met "typical American family". He heads to East Coast fearing for his life, which proves to be justified as FBR, CBR and dozen of other foreign intelligence agencies have just made him the most valuable man in the world by opening a hunt!

That’s when the movie blows into a whimsical and soaring social satire as Dr. Schaefer is jumped at the front of NY restaurant by secret agents and runs for his life passing casually Cafe Wha? and getting into the near parked flower power van. Hippies – acted by obscure psychedelic group Clear Light – become a perfect cover introducing him to the countercultural lifestyle soaked in weed, acid and rock music. These beautiful scenes with Clear Light are a real find for 60’s psych fans as the group recorded only one brilliant album for Elektra Records in late 1967 disbanding shortly afterwards, therefore their footage is extremly hard to find. There in fact we get to feed on 60’s culture exploits being loaded up with back-to-earth cliches, psychedelic wisdom and LSD freak-out scenes, all flashing through well built underground vs. overground undercurrent, which will fuel the rest of the movie with light-hearted, but hip wit.



As the intrigue carries on, we read this old anarchistic truth in "The President’s Analyst" – competition often gets in the way of itself, especially in killing business – when Dr. Schaefer luckily saves his life. In the end he’s gonna combat forces of repression using his natural talent for telling people the truth and effectively winning their side. Even if they are secret agents, they still need to be treated, which helps to unroot the seed of ultimate technocracy being planted behind the closed door by The Phone Company – a bizarre symbol of business machinery looking up to depersonalizing a free individual – when their head quarter is tactically wrecked by the doctor and his patients-friends… but the question remains, for how long it’s gonna stop the oppressors?

This terrific flick stands as one of the most hilarious 60’s projects by any standards, which gently lines up with such comedies as "I Love You Alice B. Toklas" (1968), "The Party" (1968), "The Magic Christian" (1971), but might be treated as a perfect companion for hippiesploitation flicks like "Wild In The Streets" (1968) or psychedelic sci-fi spoofs like "Barbarella" (1968) as well. No doubt it’s an artifact of it’s time, but very prophetic in pointing at all the side effects of modern political order. A must-see indeed!

Riot On Sunset Strip (1967)

"Riot On Sunset Strip" is a shitty movie even for AIP standards. Initially made for MGM by "Jungle" Sam Katzman (one of the worst genre directors you can imagine credited here as Arthur Dreifuss), a picture exploited actual riot on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, which happened when local shop owners felt their businesses were going down due to permanent presence of the local hippies and used police force to chase them away. Katzman shot his picture straight after "the riot" to use running media exposure as a sales pitch, but MGM was slow in getting the movie into theatres, hence it landed eventually in AIP office. Sam Arkoff liked the idea and agreed to distribute this dumb flick, nevertheless it flopped in the drive-ins… not without a reason.

The basic plot is duller than dull – it exploits teenage kicks in a very down-beat, sloppy way. Centre of the action is Pandora’s Box club on Sunset Blvd, where local garage groups play and where young hipsters burn their time. Indeed there we get to to recognise the rising tension between the rebelious youth and local squares. Insights are provided by members of the city hall, policemen and parents, who won’t stand these dropouts anymore and demand action. As interesting as it may sound, this potential is destroyed by initial, ridiculous voice-over, very baaad script and even worse acting! There’s not much to enjoy in "Riot On Sunset Strip", in terms of filmmaking values, unless you are a vegetable. How then did it get to be recognised as a kind of a 60’s cult movie?



The answer is very simple, it’s all about the music – the only thing here, which doesn’t let you fall asleep. One of these rare 60’s exploitation flicks giving you an opportunity to look into the garage scene. We get to see on stage such bands as: The Standells, The Mugwumps, The Chocolate Watchband and The Enemies – all full of fuzz, obscure, cult combos in 60’s garage fan circuit. If there’s one point to watch this movie, here you have it as the soundtrack is brilliant and SO RARE! It was released on Sidewalk Records the same year and probably sold much better than the movie itself.

Still, there’s one scene, that every 60’s drugsploitation fan needs to dig. It’s been tossed down together with this crap, but an absolute gem anyway – young Mimsy Farmer on acid… happening when teens think this whole club is a drag and hit the pad. "She’s never been trippin’ before… it’s the acid, sweetie", her character hears first from one of these immoral kittens. She’s trembling from fear and says no to the drug, but she will eventually get loaded when handed a well-intentioned glass of cola. She licks the sky and dances wildly – what these strange drugs will do with the kids, man! Giallo fans will find it interesting that Mimsy acted later in Dario Argento’s "Four Flies On Grey Velvet" (1971) and then in Lucio Fulci's "Black Cat" (1981). That’s the kind of pussycat she was.



[The movie can be purchased from Cinema de Bizarre]

The Trip (1967)

If you never heard about "The Trip", but psychedelic drugs are something you understand and you’ve been into, it’s definitely a movie for you – checking it out it will be like getting a proper flashback (lucky you). If you occupy the other side of the barricade thinking that drugs are bad, that you have to be a degenerate to mess with them, that people taking LSD get loco and hear voices, which make them jump from the nearest roof, don’t watch it, it’s not gonna be funny for you. After all to fully appreciate this cult movie, you need to get heavily loaded. How else are you gonna watch a movie about LSD trip, which is supposed to be real fun? Stone cold sober? Forget it!

Basically, this movie carries a real legend, which breaks down like that. One day Jack Nicholson approached Roger Corman suggesting him shooting a picture dealing exclusively with LSD experience, for which he even managed to cut a screenplay. Corman accepted it objecting only against it’s length, thus quickly rewrote it to make the film easier to produce. As he didn’t know anything about acid at this point, he promptly dropped a sugar cube in Big Sur to check it out – it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t do it before, isn’t it. It gave him a brilliant insight as "The Trip" is one of his best movies ever and could be definitely classified as drugsploitation or hippiesploitation classic.

Not everyone thought it was that awesome in the beginning though! Original cut (85 min.) has never seen the world due to AIP mongers, who messed with Corman's version cutting out the beautiful, transgressive ending! However, even this safe cut was never classified by the MPAA, which means that distribution has become impossible and the print itself was shelved. Then UK film office has followed banning a movie till 2002, which as we might expect totally cut it’s wings in Europe. But what was irreparably wrong in this picture? No violence, no even rough sex… just the fact that a character drops some acid and starts rediscovering the world around him. However, it was seen as drug culture manifesto back then – a hedonistic statement, which potentially might have corrupted the youth. As a matter of fact, due to AIP helping hand it contains one of the funniest disclaimers in film history, but even that didn’t convince the censorship unfortunately. Almost 40 years later it’s been finally released on DVD and got to live a second life.



I personally love this flick, it’s a beautiful work with a whole bunch of surreal scenes, in which main character - Paul Grove sees everything around being totally zonked out of his mind – it almost induces the acid experience itself. Worth mentioning is that the character does not do it recreationally, but as a way of feeling out where to go next (it was a part of the sales pitch back then). He faces a divorce with his wife (Susan Strasberg) and he’s not satisfied with his professional life either while all around his friends freak out and discover their inner child. A movie itself is a showcase of hallucinogenic effects! We get lens flare (the same used later in "Easy Rider" by Dennis Hopper), fantasy sequences, whirling lights and whatnot. Jerky shots of Sunset Strip were directed by Hopper (he plays Max character in the movie) and Fonda definitely knows what he’s doing as an actor. It’s a real sweetness that came our way from Corman!

As a bonus for watching "The Trip" comes fantastic, obscure soundtrack by The Electric Flag (originally released on Sidewalk Records), who recorded it as their first album in ten days session. It can be considered a masterpiece of San Francisco sound! 18 tracks cut were swinging around psychedelic rock, blues, various moods of free jazz and soul. It’s here, where Mike Bloomfield unveiled himself as a genius composer, arranger and one of the up-and-coming guitar talents in USA. The music leads a viewer through all Peter’s acid trip, from the first kick-in through blows of euphoria, paranoia, searching to be saved from bad trip and "circus court" to final wear-off. To imitate peculiar vibe of the acid trip, band used whole set of weird effects including lines played by Paul Beaver on one of the first Moog synthesizers, which were quickly to possess an American psychedelic sound.

Full movie

Najlepszy film o LSD?

Jakiś czas temu pisałem na blogu o "Riot on Sunset Strip" - kultowym filmie z gatunku hippiesploitation, który od czasu swojej premiery kinowej w 1967 nie został ponownie wydany na VHS czy DVD.

Dzieło to zostało wyprodukowane przez otoczona na Zachodzie nimbem undergroundowej legendy, wytwórnie American International Pictures lub po prostu American International.

Jednym z najwybitniejszych reżyserów, związanych z ta masowa stajnia filmów klasy B był sam Roger Corman. Jego podopiecznymi byli zaś min. Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda i Dennis Hopper. Swoje ostrogi zbierał tam także Laszlo Kovacs.

To przede wszystkim Corman był odpowiedzialny za sukcesy finansowe firmy kręcąc swoje filmy na spartanskich budżetach, co pozwolilo niemal wszystkim z nich zarabic kasę w młodzieżowych drive-inach!

Około roku 1966 American International postanowiło spieniezyc kolejna działkę kultury, tym razem były to kluby motocyklowe. Wypuszczenie filmu "The Wild Angels" z Peterem Fonda okazało się wielkim sukcesem finansowym i pozwoliło na dokrecenie kilkunastu innych. Tak narodził się gatunek "biker movie", który został kolejnym dzieckiem Cormana i AIP po serii horrorów gotyckich.

Rok później do Cormana przychodzi Jack Nicholson proponując mu zrobienie filmu koncentrujacego się wyłącznie na jednym motywie - tripie na LSD. Ten akceptuje scenariusz Nicholsona skracajac go tylko ze wzgledu na budzet, po czym sam wrzuca kwasa, żeby bardziej wczuć się w klimat głównego bohatera. W roli głównej obsadzona zostaje gwiazda "The Wild Angels", Peter Fonda.

Film nazwano po prostu "The Trip" i zrealizowano bardzo szybko, oczywiście krecac większość scen w plenerze. Oryginalna wersja liczyła 85 min. i pomimo wprowadzenia, mającego odeprzeć zarzuty apologii kultury narkotykowej, film nie doczekał się klasyfikacji wieku w Stanach Zjednoczonych (co praktycznie podcięlo dystrybucję) oraz został z miejsca zbanowany w Wielkiej Brytanii, co trwało do 2002 roku. Reedycja na DVD z 2005 liczy 76 min. i jest pierwsza po niemal 40 latach okazja zmierzenia się z tym żelaznym klasykiem drugsploitation.

Glowny bohater filmu, Paul Groves, to młody reżyser filmów reklamowych, który stoi na granicy rozwodu ze swoją żona. Jego przyjaciel John oferuje mu jednak sprobowanie nowego środka psychedelicznego - LSD, który może mu pomoc uporać się z trudna sytuacja.

Namowiony przez przyjaciela, Paul bierze LSD w hippisowskiej komunie, prowadzonej przez ziomala Johna - Maxa (Dennis Hopper), który funkcjonuje także jako diler i guru. W psychedelicznym otoczeniu Paul przeżywa oświecenie dostrzegając po raz pierwszy promieniowanie pomarańczy, a także mierząc się z wewnętrznym strachem przed śmiercią, demonami i kryzysem przed rozwodowym.

Wstrząśnięty przez wirujacy w mózgu kwas, wywołujący silne halucynacje, Paul ucieka jednak w koncu z komuny będąc przekonany, że jego przyjaciel nie zyje i walesajac się samotnie po centrum Los Angeles, a także wchodząc do napotkanego domu, gdzie nawiązuje dialog z mała dziewczynka.

W końcu udaje mu się w strachu przed policja odnaleźć komune, gdzie odzywa się nagle wielkie pożądanie do jednej z kobiet Maxa. Nie potrafiący otrząsnąć się z bad tripu Paul ucieka jednak ponownie, by natknąć się na inna kobietę, z która miał wcześniej wzrokowy kontakt. Spotkanie w barze zamienia się w seksualną przygode, która ustawia mu lot. Paul budzi sie rano, by odkryć ze stał się zupełnie innym człowiekiem.

"The Trip" to niezwykle tour de force Cormana, które graniczy z estetyka filmów Kennetha Angera, będąc także jednym z najbardziej osobistych filmów papieża kina klasy B. Niezwykle realistyczne odegranie przez Fonde przeżycia tripowania bardzo czesto sklanialo mnie do odkrywczego śmiechu (szczególnie, ze sam byłem trochę porobiony), ze ktoś mógł zrobić taki film. Niezwykle są tu także efekty świetlne i wizualne, a pokazanie tego co sie dzieje z Paulem przez wprowadzenie elementów fantasy i groteski, nadaje obrazowi niezwykłego klimatu. Poza warstwa filmowa to takze niezwykła "kapsuła czasu", która daje nam istotny wgląd w Zlote Lata kwasu.

Jeśli lubicie Cormana, Hoppera i Fonde, to film dla was obowiązkowy. Polecany oczywiście wszystkim tym, którym bliskie są wysokie loty na kwasie.

[Nowa recenzje filmu znajdziecie na lamach MGV]