Customer Reviews

Angel's Wild Women

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Al Adamson was always much better at making action films, especially those starring bikers, than the horror films he is mostly known for. "Satan's Sadists", for example, is still one of the best biker films ever made. However, in the early 1970s he found himself stuck with a just completed biker film at a time when the public had grown bored with biker films and stopped attending. So, seeing the success of films about groups of tough women like Roger Corman and Jack Hill's Pam Grier prison films, he decided to change the emphasis of the film and its marketing. Thus Angels' Wild Women was created, placing greater focus on the women in the bike group and ads greatly exaggerating how tough and mean they are were released.

Actually, the bikers in the film are quite tame. In contrast to Al's classic "Satan's Sadists", this film provides a positive perspective on bikers. The men do get into a bit of macho posturing, but otherwise they're nice folk looking for fun and freedom.

The plot of this film is quite worthwhile, however, and provides an excellent look at the end of an era. When the film was made, the Manson family trials had just occurred, which led those equating Manson's family with the hippies to declare that the hippy movement was dead. This movie, which was largely shot at the Spahn ranch, out of which Manson operated, taps into this.

The plot is simple: The females of the Angels gang are left on their own while the men attend a convention with another gang. One of the Angels gets involved with a love cult run by a sadist while visiting a ranch, and it is up to the other women to try to get her out after she learns that the leader is a criminal. Thus tragedy enters the Angels' attempt at creating a new society based on love and freedom. The women are all portrayed strongly and positively, however, it is up to the men to come to their rescue in the end. As with most of Adamson's action films, not all the good guys survive, and a certain level of sadness underlines the fun and excitement.

Though a well acted and directed movie with a decent script, Angels' Wild Women is more like a good action movie than great art like "Easy Rider", but is similar in its bitter-sweet examination of the end of an era.

This film was released in 1972, a year that marked the last gasp, of Hollywood's fascination with the outlaw biker subculture. Much of the story takes place at the infamous Spahn Ranch, site of the Manson cult in real life. In the film, the biker gals get mixed-up with hippie pot farmers, who live on the Spahn Ranch.

The hippies have a Manson-like guru who espouses peace and love, but is really a creepy, Svengali-like character. The biker babes come to the Spahn Ranch, after their men take to the road without them, in search of kicks. These biker women are tough, lascivious, and incredibly sexy-looking. They're like a wet-dream come to life, for many male, and probably some female viewers.

And like the biker chick stereotype, these gals are always eager to get it on, with any male in their vicinity. Some of these women even manage to force themselves sexually, on a hunky farm-boy that they spot working in a field. In the end, he's shown clearly enjoying the amorous attention of these biker girls.

Much of the film is incredibly violent. There's a brutal near-rape, of one of the biker chicks. She's rescued in the nick-of-time, by the other women in her biker gang, who proceed to pummel the would-be rapists to a pulp. It's as if the producers go overboard with the violent scenes, to prove to the audience that bikers are very vicious folks. Perhaps some of them are. But bikers are as human as the next person, and shouldn't be judged only by Hollywood's stereotypes of them.

The film doesn't deliver on it's promise, to showcase mainly the biker women. Despite the title, the women in this film are still overshadowed by the male biker characters. Also, the overall story-line is somewhat muddled, and hard to to follow at times. In my humble opinion, this movie falls short of it's potential. Viewers expecting to see a biker movie that revolves only around the female bikers, will be disappointed with Angel's Wild Women.

An independent biker film with cheap production values and a swiss cheese plot that will probably become a cult classic in a few years. Hard to follow the theme in some places. Utterly forgettable. I will probably give my copy away.

Ross Hagen told me, in an interview, that the movie was shot at the Manson Ranch before the killings! He didn't say whether Manson was there, but he did say that his wife Claire was so unnerved by the Manson clan that she couldn't play her parts... and so they had to bring in another actress!

Biker gangs cruising around, causing little trouble.

Having scene Satan's Sadists first, I was not as impressed with AWW. The chicks could have been a little meaner and some more violence might have helped. Dragged at several spots.