MartinHafer "The Hard Ride" is a decent film---not especially good but they people who made it tried to make a competent movie and it is watchable. However, for folks who LIKE sleazy biker pics, this one will be a HUGE disappointment! Had they infused it with the typical crap you'd find in films like "Satan's Sadists" or "Werewolves on Wheels", it would have been worse but a lot more fun.The film is about an ex-G.I. (Robert Fuller) who has come to a desert town to take possession of his dead buddy's chopper nicknamed 'Baby'. Unfortunately, all kids of nasty folks want the bike and Fuller isn't about to just give it to these jerks. However, this is only part of the film--much of it consists of Fuller and a lady driving around cross country looking for 'Big Red' as well as making out. While all this COULD have been great sleazy fun, it's all played very straight and is non-exploitation all the way. A somewhat dull time-passer and that's about it.

sol1218 (Some Spoilers) More like a "Guess who's coming to the Funeral" type movie then the usual biker flick of the 1960's and 70's cranked out by AIP Pictures. "The Hard Ride" tries very hard to make some kind of social and political statement on race relations with the female star Sheryl, Sherry Bain, having had a hot and steamy affair with the dead US Marine Lenny, Alfonso Williams. Lenny's best friend and Marine buddy Phil, Robert Fuller, brought back his body from South Vietnam for burial but that angle falls completely apart within the first ten minutes of the movie.Lenny leaves behind his last will and testament to his adopted father Catholic priest Father Tom, Marshall Reed. Lenny only mentions Sheryl who you would think were inseparable as just someone Phil should look up. Lenny want's Phil to get the address of Big Red, Tony Russel, in order to give him his, Lenny's, prized chopper affectionately named "Baby"! You get the feeling that it was "Baby" that Lenny was really in love with not his girlfriend Sheryl. Sheryl comes across more like a girl bartender that Lenny met in the local bar ,where he got good and drunk, and only remembered her name at all because she served him a load of free drinks.Trying to find where Big Red was Phil get's involved with a local biker gang who's leader Grady, William Bonner, claimed to be Big Red in order to get Lenny's chopper Baby. Seeing through Grady's lies in him claiming to be an Native American, yet having a full beard, Phil escapes from Grady's bunch on the wheels of Baby. At the place where Sheryl is working as a waitress, Mom's Diner, Phil gets her to take the afternoon off so she can help him find Big Red and have him and his bikers attend Lenny's funeral; as well as sign Baby over to him like Lenny wanted in his will.The movie has both Phil & Sheryl go through a number of close calls with the highway police and a bunch of local sh*t-kickers all over Baby that Phil is using, together with Sheryl, as transportation in his quest to get to Big Red's place. Big Red's hangout turns out to be the notorious Shannon Whorehouse just outside this God-forsaken place called Dead Man's Point. Big Red having fun with one of the hookers is angered by Phil unexpectedly dropping in on him. When he sees the chopper Baby Big Red quickly changes his mind and as for the pretty Sheryl he suddenly gets the hots for her despite the hooker that he's engaging with. Later after him making a snide and offensive play for Sheryl it leads him and Phil to duke it out to the sounds of exploding artillery shells and machine gun fire just like in Nam.Back at Mom's Diner Big Red and his boys are about to attend Lenny's funeral only to have one of the main speakers, together with Father Tom, kidnapped by the Grady Gang in revenge for what he did to him earlier in the movie. Grady also steals Baby to keep it all for himself. Big Red showing up at Grady's desert hideout with his bunch tells Grady that he can have and do what he want's to Phil but that Baby is his and with Phil, who's name the bike was legally in, being forced to sign Baby over to Big Red. This gives Big Red and his bikers just enough time to catch Grady & Co. off guard that leads to a wild and deadly free for all with Phil ending up shot dead by one of Grady's men.The movie's sad ending has not only Lenny but his good and close Marine buddy Phil buried together to a full US Marine honor guard with a tearful Sheryl and Big Red & Co. in attendance. Phil kept his promise to Lenny by bringing him back home to the states and making sure that he'll get a full Marine and Biker burial. What Phil hadn't expected was to always be at his side by being buried together along with him.

Gangsteroctopus If you're looking for something a little different from the typical late '60s/early '70s AIP biker flick, then ignore any negatory comments about this film and track yourself down a copy. (As of April 2006 Sony/MGM has yet to release it onto DVD; it was only available about 10 years back on VHS from the now-defunct Orion, who then had the rights to the AIP library, which MGM then subsequently picked up.) Yes, this film is not so heavy on the exploitation elements as others of the genre (e.g. "Satan's Sadists", which I found to be abysmally dull and typical of the inept hackwork of the 'great' Al Adamson - the title's the best thing about that film). Not that it's lacking in violence, sex, drugs and general sleaziness (there's even some brief topless nudity); it's just that this film also has some other things on its mind - LIKE TELLING A STORY.Gravelly-voiced Robert Fuller (soon-to-be of 'Emergency!' fame) stars as a returning Vietnam vet who, in accordance with a dying buddy's wishes, takes under his care his dead friend's chopper, named 'Baby'. And what a hog! This is the kind of motorcycle that I used to fantasize about when I was six years old, with high handlebars, big pipes, long forks and a throaty engine. VRROOOOM! Fuller also hooks up (not in the literal sense, mind you - at least, not initially) with his dead pal's old lady, one Sheryl, played by genre vet Sherry Bain, who is far more plausibly cast in the role than, say, Jocelyn Lane in "Hell's Belles". (Don't get me wrong: I LOVE Jocelyn Lane - she is an uber-fox of the highest degree, but she is nowhere near as believable as a 'motorcycle mama' as Bain is.) Ms. Bain, with her tousled mane of real red hair and curvy but not over-endowed body, is beautiful, but not TOO beautiful for the role, with hints of wear and tear, some frazzled edges, but still radiating a healthy sexiness, albeit one with more than a hint of sadness and cynicism underlying it.The film also deals with some interesting racial angles, too, that - to my knowledge, anyway - were pretty atypical for a genre picture like this one, and deals with them in an interesting fashion, if perhaps a tad bit too cursorily. For example, Fuller's dead pal was black, and thus Sheryl, a white woman, was crossing the color line in her relationship with him. Later, encountering another black biker who makes an impertinent assumption in coming onto her, she is prompted to respond, "I wasn't into him because he was black!" Also, the film's MacGuffin (of a sort - he's the guy Fuller and Bain spend most of the running time looking for), a guy who goes by the sobriquet Big Red, is a Native American (tribe not specified) - just another interesting detail in film whose genre is all too often portrayed as being as lily white as many eastern prep schools.As for the exploitation angles, like I said, there's plenty of substance abuse, some skinnydipping, a scene in a whorehouse (with the aforementioned nudity - hey, you could get away with more in the early '70s with a 'GP' rating) and some fairly brutal and well-directed fight sequences (much better than just about any from other films in this genre and period). Plus lots and lotsa hogs.

John Seal The Hard Ride tries to be a message movie, as Robert Fuller (soon to be Dr Kelly Brackett on TV's 'Emergency!') comes home from 'Nam to reclaim his dead buddy's chopper, Baby. Complications ensue as the local chapter of Hell's Bellyachers don't take too kindly to a straight dude muscling in on the action. This is no Satan's Sadists, heck it's not even Hell's Angel on Wheels, so aside from a few chase scenes and a whiff of miscegenation there's not much fun to be had here.