Angel Unchained and Cycle Savage Midnight Movies Review!

Long-time readers of Severed Cinema will know my history with bikers and some of the things that go hand in hand with that world. My late Dad was a Hell’s Angel from the late ‘60s, quieting down in the mid-‘70s. For the last decade before he passed in 2015, he found his life again in the circles, being that he kept the look and the ruthless nature of his biker roots alive. Members of my family are known bikers and have been for many years.

I sometimes tend to review material with a biker feel, especially music like Crow (see review of Crow Music album here), Sudden Death (see review of Suddenly album here), Coven (see review of Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls album here) and so many more, not so much the biker element but that era when music was raw and experimental.

As for films depicting biker gangs, chapters, and Hell’s Angels, it’s quite a patchy affair, truth be known. Everybody knows about Easy Rider, The Wild One, and of course quite rightly so! Great movies caught the imagination of the crowds, told good stories — they were classics. I like to look deeper into the huge whirlpool of oily engines and violence. I reviewed Psychomania (see review of Psychomania here) and Northville Cemetery Massacre (see review of Northville Cemetery Massacre here) because they are cult titles and well made. In fact, in my opinion, Northville is perhaps one of the greatest biker flicks of all time because it wasn’t your standard evil beer swilling. gal-raping bikers, the gang were the good guys. Absolutely awesome!

So, onto this Midnight Movies double bill of Angel Unchained and Cycle Savages, available on Region 1 DVD from MGM. It’s again a duo that has a hot and cold mix. Much of it really feels held back, you know, like the writers wanna let loose, but the original distributors are looking for a certain audience.

“Figure they’ll show?” asks one biker chap to his two mates as they chill at a funfair (in the background, other members of the gang labouredly ride the roller-coaster and the carousel). “Be better for them if they don’t!” sneers the bloke to his left, “But they will……. They will.”

No sooner has that been said, a rival gang ride in, and the camera captures their swooping entry from up above the players in a glorious moment. No words are exchanged, there are a couple of glares, then it’s an all-out brawl. The fight goes all over the desolate funfair, up on the roller-coaster, I mean everywhere! Using actors and members of a real biker gang! Whoa! Bet the audiences in 1970 were thrilled to the maximum!

This is how the 1970 drive-in epic, Angel Unchained, begins. It gives you the impression that it won’t take prisoners or show any mercy. Sit back and smile at the marvellous punches and stunts with over-the-top smack-in-the-face sounds. Beautiful. This continues until two hopelessly outnumbered police officers turn up carrying night sticks and looking skinny. Nether the less, the two gangs scatter.

Our central character is called Angel, played by the underrated, Don Stroud of Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, Django Unchained, Death Weekend, and many more. As he tells his President, after the brawl, he feels strung out and wants to ride alone for a while. Due to a favour owed, this is granted. He hands in his colours and goes. Angel takes a long hot ride across the country as mellow music plays over the titles. As we can predict, he ends up in a small town run by redneck good ol’ boy townies who just don’t like motorbikes at all. They stare at him, all curious. However, when a station wagon painted in hippy colours and stuff pulls up to get some gas, the townies anger directs to the two occupants. “We’re closed, boy!” grins one bloke, then tells his friends, “I sure hope these hippies have got enough gas to leave.” Angel has other ideas. Locking the man with a witheringly glare, he fills the hippie’s vehicle. He leaves with the grateful man and woman who take him back to their commune. “Damn hippies,” snarls one of the rednecks, “Looks like we gonna hafta do somethin’ bout that!”

Angel decides to stay and work with the collective of hippies. What is a tranquil existence turns out to be regularly spoilt by the townies who ride in on their little dune buggies and wreck the place on a regular. Angel fights back, but in doing so puts his new friends in danger, due to the fact they aren’t made for scrapping. Reluctantly he must reach out to his old chapter. The bikers agree to come and help but for a price. Has Angel made a huge mistake?

What is worth mentioning in Angel Unchained is the building of tension between characters throughout. The bikers and the hippies don’t mix, and of course they all dislike the townies. Angel Unchained has solid performances from all the cast, and some great entertaining fight sequences. Lee Madden (The Night God Screamed) has done a rich job on this. Unfortunately, the final battle resorts to clichés a bit too much, and the outcome is very predictable and feels like a crappy TV movie. The highlight comes earlier as the bikers meet the townies for the first time. As the President sits chatting with the sheriff about day to day life on the porch like two old pals, an all-out fight goes on in front of them between their men. It’s brilliant. “People gotta know when to stop,” says the sheriff all casual, “Gotta realise, when it’s hot, too much activity ain’t good for you.” The President nods, “Right. It tires me, watching so much activity.”

Speaking before about underrated actors, in the next film, Cycle Savages, we have the totally criminally underrated, Bruce Dern in the starring role. Bruce is a bloody workhorse who slides into so many films you’ve seen if you’re a follower of underground and cult flicks. The Trip, Bloody Mama, Hang ’em High, The ‘burbs, right up to recent Tarantino movies The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For me, his biggest and most incredible moment in his CV must be Silent Running. I love that film, from the time where Sci-Fi was daring to be adventurous. Anyhow, Bruce Dern is our next biker under the microscope.

Bruce plays, Keeg, a nasty bugger who leads a more brutal gang than the previous flick. Their idea of fun, aside from running a prostitute ring, is to ride up and totally harass the innocent bystanders in their small town. As they throw drinks about and grab girls, one afternoon, a silent square -faced man sits calmly sketching a pic of Keeg. Later that day, this fella goes into a bar where Keeg and his wild girlfriend just happen to be. Words are exchanged and Keeg snatches the man’s drawing pad. “I’ve been hearing about some wise ass going round drawing pictures of people.”

“You gonna stop drawing pictures of me an’ my friends.” Keeg threatens. The man, Romko, stands up and takes his stuff. “If you don’t mind, I got pictures to draw.” then he leaves. The barman threatens Keeg, telling him the man has loads of pictures he could take to the cops. Keeg is intrigued. “Oh, really?” as he helps himself to a beer. Roughing up the barman doesn’t get much more information, so Keeg heads off.

It doesn’t take him and his gang long to find out where Romko is staying, of course. They kick his ass and Keeg slices him with a razor. Then the film lapses into endless minutes of Romko’s recovery. He finds romance along the way. Sweet. Cycle Savages then becomes a lot of set-pieces wherein Romko has to defend himself and fight members of the gang, meanwhile Bruce Dern snarls and sneers, shaking women about and speaking in low sinister tones.

There are some really trashy elements such as fast edited out of focus rape, mild nudity, and hard faced cops to brighten proceedings, but Cycle Savages seems to be a kind of a public warning film of sorts. Nothing feels right. The ingredients are there, and I know it’s 1969 so I didn’t expect guts and gore, yet there’s that “Oh, they are so shocking” value to everything. The conclusion is hollow and totally uninteresting, but Bruce Dern is way ahead of his time in the acting skills he presents here. Keeg belongs to the late-‘70s and early-‘80s nasty era. Whilst everyone else has that clean cut ‘60s style, he goes all out.

Overall, Angel Unchained is the better of a rather dud two, but it at least has a decently thought out plot and nicely developed characters – not to mention the superb fights. These are beer can films. Sup a hearty one and enjoy.

Angel Unchained
AKA: Hells Angels Unchained, Anjo Desencadeado, De vilde engles kamp, Angels Unchained

Directed by: Lee Madden | Written by: Lee Madden, Jeffrey Alan Fiskin | Produced by: Lee Madden, Norman T. Herman, Hal Klein | Cinematography by: Irving Lippman | Editing by: Fred Feitshans Jr. | Music by: Randy Sparks | Special Effects by: Fred C Blau Jr, Roger George. | Cast: Don Stroud, Luke Askew, Tyne Daly, Larry Bishop, Pedro Regas, Linda Smith, Jordan Rhodes, TC Ryan, J Cosgrave Butchie. | Year: 1970 | Country: USA | Language: English | Color: Color | Runtime: 1h 26min

Cycle Savages

AKA: Portrait of Violence, The Cycle Savages, Rocker kennen kein Erbarmen, Hullut enkelit

Directed by: Bill Brame | Written by: Bill Brame | Produced by: Maurice Smith, Mike Curb | Cinematography by: Frank Ruttencutter | Editing by: Herman Freedman | Music by: Jerry Styner | Special Effects by: Charles Bail, Louis Lane | Cast: Bruce Dern, Chris Robinson, Maray Ayres, Melody Patterson, Walter Robles, Karen Ciral | Year: 1969 | Country: USA | Language: English | Color: Color | Runtime: 1h 25min

Distributor: MGM Home Entertainment