D2D entry #50: Devil’s Angels (1967, Daniel Haller)
(Featured in Dusk to Dawn #2 and Dusk to Dawn #7.)
I’ve not had much luck with the biker genre in the past, though I can’t say I’ve tried much either. I haven’t even seen Easy Rider yet. So it probably doesn’t mean anything when I say that Devil’s Angels is the best biker flick I’ve yet come across. (All it means is that it’s better than She-Devils on Wheels. Oooh-whee.)
This flick comes from the Corman factory, which means it’s got a polish on it that belies its two-buck budget. It’s loose and shaggy, with a genuine wit about it; rather than push our noses in biker “attitude” and calling it a day, director Daniel Haller and screenwriter Charles B. Griffith actually want to tell a story and give a good time to those who might not be entirely down with ninety minutes of hairy bears on hogs. The ace in the hole is John Cassavetes. Though the casting of him as a badass biker leader could be called a bit, um, bizarre, it’s an offbeat choice that pays off; Cassavetes’s wiry, unpredictable presence keeps the film off-kilter while providing space for unusual moments of humor and character work. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d offered some uncredited directorial advice, as Devil’s Angels in its best moments (i.e. the sacking of the convenience store) carries the kind of off-the-cuff jazzy energy of Shadows and Faces. Except, you know, with less angst and more big bearded guys in leather and bomber goggles.
Griffith’s script is sharp pulp, with both an enterprising vision of biker rebellion/freedom and a well-honed feel for the bland, corny squareness against which that rebellion sets itself. What truly surprises is the last-act turn the story takes into the realms of morality play; the climax is odd in that it offers the carnage and destruction the audience was promised while removing the triumph, the joy, the romanticism of it all. The credits roll over the ambivalent, broken mug of Cassavetes, riding his bike to nowhere in particular.
