moonspinner55
B-grade "wheeler" has motorcycle gang infiltrating a small community, getting everyone riled up, especially service station attendant Jack Nicholson, who is introduced to us roughing up a middle-aged customer who just wants to fill his gas-guzzler with ethyl. Richard Rush is credited with the direction, however the real standout here is cinematographer Leslie Kovacs (aka László Kovács), whose attentive eyes and ears give us some provocative shots of the townspeople interacting with the biker hellions, aided by William Martin's editing. The juxtaposition of city squares and greasy rebels--the culture and the counterculture, if you will--is far more interesting than the 'plot,' which has Nicholson putting his faith in a fickle biker chick. Nicholson soon escaped from the drive-in movie rut, but co-star Adam Roarke never did. Handsome Roarke has panache and a moody, swaggering quality that mainstream Hollywood missed out on. Rush misses it, too, staging an unexciting final fight scene between Roarke and Nicholson that ends the movie with a thud. Stu Phillips' score is perhaps too perky for a picture like this. *1/2 from ****
mikebell
The majority of "Hell's Angels On Wheels" was shot in and around Bakersfield, California doubling for Nevada. The trashed motel is the Bakersfield Inn, which had suffered a major fire in the year before. The scenes of the gang cruising along the highway, taking part in a hill climb, running the old man off the road, and lounging around in a wooded park were all shot in the Hart Park/Lake Ming area just NE of Bakersfield. And the wedding sequence was shot on the grounds of the Kern County Museum's "Pioneer Village." It's interesting to note that a major scene of the gang riding up and down a city street was shot along 19th street in downtown Bakersfield. A couple of years later, Jack Nicholson walked the same two blocks in "Five Easy Pieces."
whpratt1
Always like Jack Nicholson and some how missed this picture when he was very young and starting on a great career of acting. For some reason I did not feel like he fit very well in his role as a recruit of the California Hell's Angels. Jack gets roughed up and beaten by a bunch of swabbies in a carnival, who made the fight a Three Against One sort of battle. When his newly acquainted friends of the Hell's Angels find out, an all out war gets into progress. As you can expect, there are plenty of hot to trot sexual gals with the gang who seem to go from one guy to the next in order to please and make them comfortable, no one woman for each guy. However, there is an exception, a couple wants to make there love making official and practically drive their bikes right into a church near Las Vegas, Nevada. Just remember, this film was produced in 1967 and it was a big shocker in those DAYS !
angelsunchained
This has to rate as the third best biker film of the 1960s behind Easy Rider and The Wild Angels. As bad as the script is, it's clear that Jack Nicholson as Poet, an angry gas-pump jockey who joins the Hell's Angels is a star in the making.The opening scene alone is worth seeing for any biker-film buff, as over 1,000 Hell's Angels on blazing choppers led by their leader Ralph "Sonny" Barger come rumbling down the California highway.With a supporting cast of Adam Rourke(of Hell's Belles fame) & Easy Riders' Sabrina Scharf, along with "B" movie legend Jack Starrett as a tough-talking state trooper,the movie captures the "wild" days of the 1960s Hells Angels Motorcycle gang. The movie even has a "surprise" ending. With bikers, bikes, booze, and brawls, who could ask for anything else in a better than average "B" film?
