Roger Corman x Peter Fonda “The Wild Angels” Before the Dawn of American New Cinema

Director Roger Corman's production intentions

The main character of the movie is Bruce (Peter Fonda), the leader of the Health Angels, who invites his fellow biker gang member Loser (Bruce Dern) to ride a motorcycle with his friends and give themselves over to speed.

However, one day, Loser is seriously injured in an accident and is taken to the hospital by the police. Bruce and his friends force him out of the hospital, but Loser, who was already dead, dies. The Angels call a pastor to the church and hold a funeral, but soon a horrifying party involving LSD and sex begins.

Afterwards, the group goes to the cemetery to bury Loser, but a hostile tribe appears there and a scuffle ensues. The police arrive with the sound of sirens, and the Angels try to escape on a motorcycle, but only Bruce continues to dig Loser's grave...

THE WILD The Wild Angels(c) 1966 Orion Pictures Distribution Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

This film attempts to explore the ecology of the Angels, which was becoming a social issue at the time, and when I interviewed director and producer Roger Corman, he told me the following story.

“At that time, I was very interested in the Health Angels culture, because it had so much power. So, through this work, I wanted to express American life from a working-class perspective. , I believe it was one of the first American films to capture motorcycle gangs.

Corman's activities at that time are discussed in detail in the masterpiece documentary `` The Corman Empire '' (2011, directed by Alex Stapleton), which follows his film career.

"Corman Empire" preview

Corman, who had been making a series of super-cheap B-movies centered around science fiction and horror since the late 1950s, was a producer and director who was sensitive to the trends of the times. Meanwhile, ``The Wild Angels'' was born as a work that reflected the changing times, and became a huge hit at drive-in theaters and other theaters at the time.

New values ​​in the late 1960s when America was shaken