The Violence... The Hate... The Way-out Parties... Exactly as it happens!
Hells Angels on Wheels is a low-budget 1967 American biker film directed by Richard Rush and starring Jack Nicholson.
Poet (Nicholson) is a gas station attendant who longs for excitement in his life. Soon after getting fired, he finds it when he meets a Hells Angels chapter, whose leader Buddy (Adam Roarke) takes him under his wing after he helps the angels in a bar fight. However, he soon learns that they're much more brutal than they seemed, partaking in various debaucheries up to and including murder. Eventually, Poet starts to develop a mutual attraction to Buddy's old lady Shill (Sabrina Scharf), which sends the two on a path that can only end in bloodshed.
This film contains examples of:
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: Kinda subverted as it provides a pretty realistic portrayal of the Hells Angels: hard-partying, nihilistic and provocative outcasts who mean no harm but whose provocative behavior leads them into trouble, to which they immediately retaliate with fists and chains. Hells Angels president Sonny Barger even worked on the filming as an advisor.
- Antagonist Title
- Bar Brawl: Poet first joins the Angels after helping them with a bar fight.
- Big Bad: Buddy, leader of the local Hells Angels chapter.
- Control Freak: Buddy flat says he loves anybody who follows his orders. This goes double for woman, who don't even get a say in his gang.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Poet gets fired after threatening a customer for rushing him and hitting his boss for criticizing him for it.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Buddy flat calls his old lady his property, and declares that women don't get a say in the running of his motorcycle club.
- I Am Spartacus: When the cops confront Jocko for a murder he committed, Poet starts all the Angels claiming they were the one who did it. It doesn't work because one of their old ladies rats Jocko out.
- Inherited Illiteracy Title: Titled after the real Hells Angels, who don't spell their name with an apostrophe.
- Non-Actor Vehicle: For real Hells Angel Sonny Barger.
- The Pig-Pen: One of the Angels makes a crack about only bathing once a month.
- Sexual Extortion: Buddy tries to pass Abigale around to his buddies on threat of leaving her in the middle of nowhere.
- Team Title
- Villain Opening Scene: The Angels arriving in town and harassing a couple of girls in a car.
