Rent Hell's Angels on Wheels (1967)

Easy Rider’s Scruffy Dry Run - Hell's Angels on Wheels review by griggs

What really hooked me here wasn’t the story; it was the curiosity of watching baby-faced Jack Nicholson messing around with real bikers a couple of years before Easy Rider tried to make the open road profound. This is very much the warm-up act: scruffy, low-budget, and mostly interested in cruising about and causing mild bother.

Hells Angels on Wheels is is much milder than that title promises. The punch-ups feel more Saturday-night pub than apocalyptic showdown, but there’s plenty of daft business, a fair bit of leering, and an almost comical number of bikes roaring past the camera. The film leans heavily on riding scenes cut to pop tracks, and one long-lens sequence set to “Goin’ Nowhere” is quietly brilliant.

As a drama it never quite catches fire. But as a scruffy little time capsule – Nicholson grinning, real Angels flexing, Hollywood still instinctively siding with the outsiders – it’s fun enough to spin once.