Customer Reviews

Run, Angel, Run

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Roger Corman is generally credited with introducing audiences to the biker-gang film genre with The Wild Angels (1966), but know that Joe Solomon was no slouch when it came to producing various `chopper operas' during the late 60's with such films as Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), Angels from Hell (1968), Wild Wheels (1969), and this film, Run, Angel, Run (1969). Looking at the DVD case you might get the impression Angel is a woman, being pursued by primates on motorcycles (at least that's the one I got), but you'd be wrong (as I was)...no, the title refers to a man named Angel, played by veteran actor William Smith, in his very first biker film. Who's William Smith? If your familiar with B films, the name should be know to you, but for those who aren't, you may remember him from a film called Any Which Way You Can (1980), as the bare knuckle brawler who fought Clint Eastwood's character at the end of that film...he can also be seen in the classic film Conan the Barbarian (1982), as Conan's father...a small, but memorable, role. Directed by Jack Starrett, who also appeared in front of the camera in a number of films (he played the curmudgeonly Gabby Johnson in Mel Brooks' 1974 classic Blazing Saddles), the film stars, along with Smith, Valerie Starrett (hey, she has the same last name as the director...that's because they were married, fool) in her only silver screen appearance. Also appearing is Dan Kemp (Hell's Bloody Devils), Margaret Markov (Black Mama, White Mama), and Gene Shane (The Velvet Vampire).

As the film begins we see an expository montage detailing how Angel (Smith) sold out his former gang, led by Ron (Shane), by revealing their secret, inner workings and such to a magazine called `Like' for a price of $10,000, along with plastering Angel's mug on the cover. As you can imagine, the gang is none to happy about this, and `fix' it with a crooked cop to get Angel busted so they can catch up to him and express their displeasure. Before they get a chance to do this, Angel's girlfriend Laurie (Starrett), a cocktail waitress and part-time hooker, bails him out, acquiring the necessary funds by peddling...well, certainly not drinks (how many women would do this for their old man? Not any I know)...anyway, once Laurie springs Angel, they hit the road to San Francisco to pick up his bread, but his former gang is in hot pursuit, and they literally jump a train (one of the better stunts in the film) and meet some rapscalious hobos (a word to the wise, if a hobo shares something with you, whether it be a piece of sausage or a swig from his hooch bottle, he expects something in return, like a tumble with your old lady). They eventually have to hole up in an abandoned house (one with working water, gas, and electricity, by the way), and Angel gets a job with a nearby sheep rancher named Dan (Kemp) in the capacity of mechanic/sheep dipper (sheep dipping is the use of a liquid disinfectant to destroy parasites and to clean the wool, prior to shearing). Things seem to be going pretty well for Angel and Laurie, that is until Dan's pretty, young daughter Meg (Markov) inadvertently informs the gang of Angel's whereabouts, and things get messy from here on as the gang not only wants sweet revenge on Angel (they are willing to accept the money in exchange for letting him off), but their long search has caused them to be without female companionship, and they have their eyes on Meg and Laurie...

I actually thought this was a pretty decent film as it featured more of an actual story than I expected (the film was extremely popular on the drive-in circuit at the time, mostly due to the appeal of the rugged and handsome Smith). There is any number of exploitive elements throughout, but a lot of the film deals with the usually volatile relationship between a very impulsive Angel (who sure says the word `baby' a lot) and his damaged goods girlfriend Laurie. This effectively slows down the film in the middle, but Smith and Starrett did well breathing life into their characters, keeping my interest, and manage to keep things from getting too hokey. Given this is a movie about bikers, there's a good number of motorcycle ridin' montages featuring Tammy Wynette singing the theme song `Run, Angel, Run'. One thing I thought was really weird, given the relationship between the director and the lead actress, was the scenes where Angel and Laurie are getting it on...how does a director film his wife in such a scene? I'd be freaking...the scenes themselves were fine, but knowing the director is shooting his wife getting it on with another man just seems...wrong somehow...anyway, some things to watch out for...check out imbecilic Meg when she's hanging with a group of bikers in the woods...seriously, there's naïve and then there's just dumb...oh yeah, check out the dirty, greasy, shaggy, slimy, middle-aged bikers frugging up a storm with the teenage girls at the local juke joint...it was enough to put me off my food for a few hours. The final sequences were pretty cool, as Angel has a sort of showdown with his former gang, his only weapon being a garden implement of some kind...

The fullscreen print (1.33:1) looks fairly decent, but isn't without flaws. The Dolby Digital mono audio doesn't fair as well, as it's very soft, so you'll have to crank the volume. Special features include trailers for the film, along with one for the films Hells Angels 69, Hell High, Warlock Moon, and The Hollywood Strangler . Also, there's an optional intro by none other than Joe Bob Briggs himself, along with a `comedy' commentary track which is worth the price alone as Briggs imparts an incredible amount of detail as well as humor throughout. I would have given this release three stars, but the inclusion of this feature is enough for me to cough up an extra star.

Cookieman108

I bought this film because of the Joe Bob Briggs commentary. I am a fan of Joe Bob, and appreciate not only his sense of humor but his encyclopedic knowledge of B-movies as well. I am not especially fond of biker flicks, though I have seen several, but this one is somewhat different than the norm (at least for early pre-Altamonte biker flicks, anyway) in that the hero not only double crosses his gang, but he is also a sensitive ladies man.

The story essentially concerns itself with William Smith as Angel, who sold his story to "Like" magazine for $10,000. The betrayed gang spends the remainder of the movie trying to hunt him down, of course. Along the way there are major diversions involving romance (with a stripper and part-time hooker who happened to be the director's wife), brutality, extremely bad dancing, and sheep ranching. I am not making this up. There is a major part of the plot devoted to sheep ranching and Angel's conflict over settling down versus the freedom of the open road. This is the only movie I am aware of to feature an actual sheep stampede triggered by a cackling guy on a Harley.

In most biker films gang betrayal is always treated as a bad thing, which is what makes this one rise to the top of the genre. I won't pretend that this film is subtle and textured, but I will say that it is watchable. The acting is generally a cut above other low budget biker films and the direction by Jack Starret is generally well done. The movie does take some turns into unexpected areas, however. In addition to the prominent romance and sheep ranching subplots, there are tender "walking on the beach" montages of hand holding and hugging and other relics from a Harlequin romance that just don't seem to fit in a biker movie. Joe Bob comments on these elements, so I won't belabor the point other than to say that it's all a bit different than the norm. In the interest of total disclosure, Joe Bob was the one who termed this a "chick flick," and while I generally agree with him, be aware that there is some ugly violence in this movie, some of it comically fake (the bar fight, for example), and some of it not.

The Joe Bob introduction and commentary was the prime attraction to me here, and although the film isn't one of my personal favorites, the commentary track is brilliant. It is amazing how much Joe Bob knows about B-movies, and his description of William Smith's unbelievably fascinating past alone is worth the price of admission (he was the last television Marlboro Man, and he speaks five languages including Russian and Serbo-Croatian, and formerly worked for the National Security Agency, apparently.)

If you want to see a chick flick about bikers and sheep ranching, this is the movie for you!

This was it, the film that launched Big Bill Smith into B-movie stardom. The first of several biker flics he made, it is, as Joe Bob Briggs in his comentary says, a love story. Rather think of it as a love story where the treats his woman some cheap dirt whore -- come to think of it, she is one. This film will have you enthralled. It has motorcycle stunts, bar fights, gang rapes, the whole nine yards. It also has the fakest moustache ever on film. Sometimes poor Bill could not emote for fear that it would fall off.

First off, Run, Angel, Run suffers from a poor quality picture and sound... I mean really bad... almost unwatchable.
But if you can get past that you find an amazingly terrible script, poor direction and a story line that alternately confounds in it's implausiblility, and drags in it's drudgery.
William Smith's overacting reaches the ridiculous- he may be a world scholar as the commentary points out, but he wasn't smart enough to get out of the way of this train wreck.
A few cool looking examples of late sixties choppers, but they're not really on screen long enough to call this a biker movie, if you ask me.

What can I say? I was named after the character in this movie so it has certain sentimental value for me. The main character's actions are a bit frustrating at times. You may find yourself thinking, "why the f*&@ would he do something like that?!" But I guess that is the way of the B-movie, things don't always fit together perfectly and make sense. Cool to see some old-school motorcycles and choppers! Sometimes you gotta love bad movies...

No big star at that time was capabable of playing this role as good as William Smith. While on the run from his old biker gang, Angel is an animal who's girlfriend is trying to change into a human being. Although a hooker, his girlfriend is beautiful and caring,(the only good thing in Angel's life) but doesn't take any of his crap. The dialog is exactly what you'd expect from such people and is very believable. Because of the drama and interaction between the two lovers, women would really like this movie. For a biker film there is not much violence but the great performances, and very original story line makes it an entertaining movie for everyone.

Definitely not the movie that I thought that I was getting. This will be a watch it once and not recommend that any of my guests watch as they will be disappointed.

Joe Bob Briggs calls this the only "Chick Flick" of the entire biker cycle (pun most definitely intended). It's an interesting one. Real life Marlboro Man, William Smith stars as "Angel", a musclebound biker who rats out his gang in a national magazine expose. Of course the gang want to kill him. So he takes off from LA to San Francisco (apparently, this is about a two week drive) to pick up his big paycheck from the magazine (apparently, the magazine couldn't get him the check in LA). His girlfriend (a stripper/prostitute) goes with him. Despite being a hulking, crude back-stabbing biker scum type, Angel is really nothing but a blustering softy. He really loves him his woman! And she loves him back. She knows he's good, despite having sold out all his friends. They squabble like Archie Bunker and Edith about decorating and poorly prepared dinners. They get a house. Angel gets a job as sheep dipper (?!). He finds a father figure in the Sheep Ranch boss (a former biker). Throughout all this, Smith emotes like William Shatner facing down some particularly heartless Romulans. He's an emotional guy with big dreams. Like how he's going to buy a mansion with a butler and servants and stuff as soon as he gets his big magazine paycheck (I think the check was for something like five thousand dollars). It's not really explained why he decides to postpone getting this check (by getting a house and becoming a sheep dipper along the way to San Francisco - isn't that only a few hours drive?!). Angel is a complicated man. Anyway, lots of other things happen; Some of it funny. Some of it very brutal. There are some good bike stunts, some cool split-screen action (among other avant touches). Angel's girlfriend was played by director, Jack Starrett's wife. She's good - hot too! - I think it was her only film role. Tammy Wynette sings the theme song. I wouldn't call it a great film, but it's got that elusive something going on.