Product Details

• Actors: Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Keith, Lee Marvin, Jay C. Flippen
• Directors: Laslo Benedek
• Writers: Ben Maddow, Frank Rooney, John Paxton
• Producers: Stanley Kramer
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC, Subtitled, Full Screen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English, French
• Dubbed: French
• Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Columbia Pictures
• DVD Release Date: November 10, 1998
• Run Time: 79 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767818172
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,213 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "The Wild One" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Wild One (1953) was directed by Laslo Benedek and based on Frank Rooney's chilling short story "Cyclists' Raid" about a motorcycle gang taking over a small town. Props to Marlon Brando, by then an annual Oscar nominee, for agreeing to re-team with producer Stanley Kramer (who had produced the actor's debut film, The Men) on what is essentially a 79-minute B movie. His reward was to become the premier icon of 1950s rebellion, pioneering the way James Dean, Elvis Presley, and others would follow. The Wild One also introduced biker hipster patter to movie audiences and defined biker fashion for decades to come. So the movie is a cultural milestone--but hardly a cinematic one: it rarely escapes feeling schematic and overcautious in its fear of alienating the public on one hand and glorifying violence on the other. Lee Marvin injects a welcome shot of battery acid as the leader of a rival biker gang, and veteran cinematographer Hal Mohr does yeoman work on dull sets. --Richard T. Jameson

Product Description

Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Lee Marvin. A rebellious motorcycle gang roars into a small town and stirs up all kinds of trouble when the charismatic, sneering leader falls in love with a local girl in this original biker drama. 1954/b&w/79 min/NR/fullscreen.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 46 years later... December 16, 2000

By gjn

Format:DVD

I look at this film today through very different eyes than when I first saw it as a high-schooler in '54.

Of course a lot of it seems hokey now, and with good reason: the world is a far less innocent place than it was in those bucolic, Eisenhower, pre-R&R days.

But when it first came out, it was Hot Stuff. Bad guys, noisy bikes, beer-drinking, and girls in tight sweaters were a big deal to us then.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars SUPERB !!! RIVITING 50'S BIKER FILM !!! June 23, 2007

By Felix The CAT

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I strongly disagree with the previous negative reviews of "The Wild One".

I suppose if films were made during the pre-Victorian era, we would have reviews bashing them because most (any?) of the current reviewers did not live during those times and are unlikely to understand the dialog from those times!!!

I do agree the dialog will seem a bit "corny" when viewed in 2007, however
having lived through the 1950's, "Hipsters" or "Beatniks" were some of the only "cool" people around and they DID speak this way!

Please don't confuse this film with the actual "corny" "B" sci-fi junk films released in the 50"s

This film is the definitive landmark biker film of the 1950's era.
As high tech as possible using 50's tech.

Superb costumes, music, acting, dialog, editing!! Supreme crisp black & white filming!!

If you are a collector of biker/cult films, as I am, you collection IS NOT complete WITHOUT this movie!!!

41 of 50 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars He's really just a pussy cat February 8, 2004

By Dennis Littrell HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

The "bikers" are like Broadway show extras. The dialogue is embarrassingly unauthentic. Believe me, nobody outside of 42nd Street ever talked like that, daddy-o. The story plays out like some kind of "B" Western with a horse shortage. The "town" even looks like a Western set made over for what somebody in Hollywood thought might be a new genre. There's a café and a saloon rolled into one and a gal working there to catch the eye, and a town posse and a jail and a sheriff (father of the gal) and some "decent citizens" turning into vigilantes, and instead of outlaws we have "hooligans." The bikers do everything but tie their bikes up to the hitching post after roaring into town as though to take over.

Okay, that's one level. On another level this should be compared to Rebel without a Cause (1955) as a mid-century testament to teen angst. Or to Blackboard Jungle (1955) with the fake juvenile delinquency and the phony slang. Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler, whose claim to fame (aside from being the leader of the pack) is that he stole a second-place biker trophy, stars in a role that helped to launch his career, not that his acting in this film was so great. (He was better in half a dozen other roles, for example., as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire 1951, or as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront 1954). What stands out here is his tough-guy vulnerability with women: the irresistible little boy playing big. In one sense, this is, despite all the men running around and the macho delirium, something very close to ladies night out. It's a period piece love story, as delicate as a teenager's heart....

Mary Murphy, who in my opinion really steals the show, is at the very center of the drama and the psychology (not to mention that she looks downright yummy in her cashmere sweater and close fitting skirt). She plays Kathie Bleeker, a small town girl whose heart yearns for something--anything--to break the tedium. Along comes Johnny to sweep her off her feet. Only he isn't sure how. Furthermore, she has a problem: although she falls in love with the wild one, she sees right through him. The scene that makes the movie begins with her jumping onto the back of his motorcycle (of course) and, after roaring down the night highway, they retire to what looks like a park. She is about a breath away from what used to be called swooning, but despite her fluttering heart, she sets him straight on who he is and how she feels and why. It's like a woman talking to a wild boy. Then she falls to the ground and just about caresses his motorcycle. It really hits home because she sees through all his pretense and exposes his vulnerability, but is vulnerable herself.

Lee Marvin plays the rival gang leader with a lot of showmanship and Robert Keith plays the ineffectual father. Just about everybody else (including longtime LA sports anchor, Gil Stratton) amounts to an extra.

See this for a glimpse at mid-century psychology as seen through the eyes of Hollywood's seduction machine, and especially for Mary Murphy (running in those heels) who, for whatever reason, never became a star. Read more ›

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not so wild over 50 years later, but worth seeing anyway August 9, 2006

By Tom Benton

Format:DVD

THE WILD ONE, though a cult classic, has never really been revered as a great film. Its cult status and respect among movie buffs is due to its influence on pop culture following the film. Marlon Brando and his team of bikers made leather jackets, jeans, and motorbikes the trademarks of rebellion, and because of that, the film is worth seeing. Influence aside, THE WILD ONE isn't such a great film. It hasn't aged well at all. Brando is still cool, however; Johnny Strabler may not be one of his very finest performances, but it's one of his most popular. The best part of the cast is Lee Marvin as the over-the-top leader of a rival motorbike gang calling themselves The Beetles (!). The script is filled with "jive" that now seems laughably silly, but it does contain a classic bit of dialogue, in which a woman asks Johnny Strabler what he's rebelling against. "Whaddya got?" Johnny asks. THE WILD ONE isn't any masterpiece, but it's an influential cult classic that's worth seeing if only for that reason.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "The Wild One" introduces the motorcycle as the symbol of youth rebellion... January 16, 2007

By Roberto Frangie

Format:DVD

The 1950's was a period of review and questioning, as a new postwar generation sensed that much was wrong but could not grasp what it was nor offer any solution... It was, in fact, a generation with a sensitive exposed nerve that gave constant pain...

Marlon Brando, a young 'Method' actor (the "Method' was itself a manifestation of the times) began his film career with 'The Men' (1950) and continued with 'A Streetcar Named Desire' (1951), 'Viva Zapata' (1952) and 'Julius Caesar' (1953), all roles concerned with rebellion... Then, in 1953, he made 'The Wild One' and his rebel image crystallized...

Brando plays Johnny, leader of a motorcycle gang calling itself the Black Rebels, which terrorizes Wrightsville, a little American town...

The gang members release their frustrated emotions by racing, overturning a car, and by vicariously participating in a savage fight between Johnny and Chino (Lee Marvin), formerly a part of Johnny's gang but now a rival club...

Violence escalates when the town forms a vigilante committee, and inevitably there is an accidental killing... Johnny is saved from wrongful arrest by Kathie (Mary Murphy), a local girl who, in spite of herself, falls in love with him, as he does with her... She senses beneath his cruel exterior an innate gentleness, and is attracted by his sexuality, an element that was increasingly to become a factor in the evolution of the rebel hero...

Johnny and the gang finally leave town and life returns to normal, but many questions that the film poses were left unanswered...

Brooding, and compulsive, the film created a noisy tumult partly because it failed to show 'why' youths were this way, ending up, in the words of one critics "violent for violence's sake...." However it is an important film... It reflected the problems of the period and it marked a step in the progress of the rebel hero... It also introduced the motorcycle as the symbol of youth rebellion foretelling such films as 'Wild Angels' (1966) and 'Easy Rider' (1969). Read more ›