Cyclemaniacs assaulting and killing for thrills!
Motor Psycho (1965)
Wednesday, May 22nd
8pm – food and previews. Film starts at 8-30 sharp.
633 Grand St (bet Leonard & Manhattan), Bklyn, NY 11211
Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!
Delicious home cooking by Chef Ryall…so come hungry and come early!!
Bike riding Hoodlums Flat-Out on their Murder cycles
Russ Meyer’s film Motor Psycho follows a hooligan gang of three bikers who tear around on little Hondas and create havoc for other people’s women. This film is the male counterpart to the hell raising, go-go dancing vixens of Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill! Which was made and released later that same year.
Brahmin (Stephen Oliver), the leader of the gang on a 1964 Honda CT 200 is a deranged Vietnam vet (interesting as a character detail since the film was only made in 1965). He’s ruthless and not entirely right in the head. Stephen Oliver’s other biker credits would later include Wild Riders and the Cine Meccanica favorite,Werewolves on Wheels.
Dante (about Brahmin): Crazy!
Slick: Yeah, like Rasputin
Dante (Joseph Cellini), the most oversexed member of the gang, rides a 1965 Honda Trail 90. He’s the guy that always takes the shenanigans too far.
Slick (obsessed with his transistor radio and not much else) rides a 1963 Honda C 105 H. His most notable scene is one where he stops to call his mom to check in, while the gang is in mid assault of a poor young hostage. He’s not the smartest tool in the shed.
Leaving broken women in the dust of their bikes, they seem unstoppable, until they mess with the wrong man’s woman.
Cory Maddox (Alex Rocco), a horse veterinarian (yes there are many a stud joke) finds his wife, Gail (Holle K. Winters) has been attacked by the gang, while he was out fending off a “sex maniac” client, and he vows vengeance on the delinquents.
On his search, Cory comes across an odd, bickering married couple on their way to Hollywood. Buxom Ruby (Haji later to appear as Rosie in Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill) and her ancient husband Harry (Coleman Francis).
Stopped on the road with a flat, the couple has a run in with the gang. Harry is all too willing to give them his Cajun bride to save himself, but Dante finding a gun in the back of the truck shoots Harry by accident. Knowing that by graduating to murder they have gone too far, Brahmin shoots Rudy and leaving her for dead, blows out the tires on the bikes to evade capture, or perhaps throw off the cops, and they take off in the couple’s truck.
Cory arrives on the scene, patching Rudy up (turned out all she needed was a band-aid on the forehead), and takes her along with him.
After some chasing, the gang gets Cory and Rudy trapped in the desert. They bond over a bizarrely sexual snake bite scene, where Rudy is forced to suck the poison out of Corey’s leg…Suck it! Harder, harder! Now spit!
While Corey is hallucinating from the poison, Dante comes after Rudy. She, unlike the other girls who’ve had run ins with the gang, uses her womanly “Meyer” wits to fool him. She unbuttons her dress pretending to like it, but as soon as she can, stabs him in the back.
When the war is over, we will all enlist again…
Brahmin who’s beginning to slip into a weird war flashback, mercilessly shoots at the pair. He hits Rudy in the chest (of course) and the Corey drags her to a mine entrance where he pleads with Brahmin to stop. He’s clearly flipped and rants about lost comrads and no mercy for the enemy.
Finally, Cory fashions a bomb out of dynamite lying around the mine entrance and puts poor Brahmin out of his madness.
Rudy: Thanks
Cory: For what? Damn near getting you killed?
See obsessive Cine Meccanica screen shots from the film HERE
- Corinna
Opening Scene
Snake bite cure
Smooth, fast and in high gear!
Speedway (1968)
Wednesday, May 15th
8pm – food and previews. Film starts at 8-30 sharp.
Lady Jay’s, 633 Grand St (bet Manhattan & Leonard), Bklyn, NY 11211
Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!
Delicious home cooking by Chef Ryall…This week is Pulled Pork, so come hungry and come early!!
Honey, I’m going to leave the driving to you.
This week’s review comes to us courtesy of Roger Ebert himself, circa 1968. Enjoy! – Corinna
You may not believe this, but I was inspired to see Elvis Presley’s “Speedway” because of this week’s Essay in Time magazine. There were other reasons, too. I hadn’t seen an Elvis movie since last summer’s “Easy Come, Easy Go,” and after a week of war movies (Mexican, Second and Vietnam) the idea of a nice, relaxed, simple musical held allure.
Time’s Essay is entitled “The Late Show as History.” It points out that the 13,000 old movies now providing TV’s late shows are “America’s National Museum of Pop Art, the biggest repository of cultural artifacts outside the Smithsonian.”
Time is right. The old movies contain the attitudes, prejudices, hopes and dreams of earlier years. They recall the hunger for money during the Depression, the era of the great stars, and the unashamed B Western: “Golly, Mr. Autry,” sighs Pat Buttram, “you sure do sing purty.”
Just the other night, for example, Chicago saw Spike Jones and Buddy Hackett in “Fireman, Save My Child,” a 1954 comedy described by The Sun-Times’ TV Prevue as a “false alarm.” So it was. But where else, I ask you, could a younger generation learn who Spike Jones was? Or that Buddy Hackett hasn’t changed his style in 14 years? These are discoveries not to be sniffed at.
“Speedway” is the late show of 20 years from now, I suppose. What will it tell the insomniacs of 1988 about our society? For one thing, they will probably wonder why we considered Elvis a sex symbol. He is as respectable on the screen as Dick Powell ever was, and his recent movies hold no hint of the swivel hips my generation remembers from the Ed Sullivan shows of 1956.
Viewers will also find a catalog of the recreations and material possessions prized in 1968, especially by Southerners. Elvis’ films are quite successful in the South, and “Speedway” seems to have been made with that market in mind.
Stock-car racing is far and away the most popular Southern sport (see Tom Wolfe’s “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby”). So in “Speedway,” Elvis races a Barracuda around the Charlotte Speedway, lives in an expensive mobile home, drinks pop and keeps his hair combed.
“Speedway” also reflects the ground rules of courtship established in old Ozzie and Harriet shows. Elvis is excessively proper in behavior with his various dates (one of whom is Beverly Hills, the Hollywood stripper whose charms rival Brigitte Bardot’s, and another of whom is Nancy Sinatra, whose charms do not).
There is a lot of coyness. “You locked us in here on purpose,” Nancy pouts, and Elvis gets his extra key to prove he didn’t mean to. Meanwhile, Nancy climbs out the trailer’s window, which seems excessive under the circumstances. But maybe not. At least one of the girls in “Speedway” is convinced by tape-recorded animal roars that the lions have escaped from the zoo, and that Elvis’ trailer is the only safe haven.
And so it goes, with Elvis buying a station wagon for a poor family, and Elvis arguing with the tax man, and Elvis climbing into his Plymouth, and Nancy Sinatra still desperately trying, at this late stage of her career, to sing.
“Speedway” is pleasant, kind, polite, sweet and noble, and if the late show viewers of 1988 will not discover from it what American society was like in the summer of 1968, at least they will discover what it was not like. – Roger Ebert, June 28, 1968
For Fame, Fortune and Broken Bones!
Evel Knievel (1971)
Wednesday, May 8th
8pm – food and previews. Film starts at 8-30 sharp.
633 Grand St (bet Leonard & Manhattan), Bklyn, NY 11211
Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!
Delicious home cooking by Chef Ryall…This week is Pulled Pork, so come hungry and come early!!
You stick with me, Doc, and I’ll show you the Grand Canyon!
The story is a biography of the famed motorcycle daredevil, who grew up in Butte, Montana. The film depicts Knievel reflecting on major events in his life, particularly his relationship with his girlfriend/wife, Linda. The film opens with Knievel at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California. Knievel is speaking directly to the camera describing his upcoming daredevil motorcycle jump:
Ladies and gentlemen, you have no idea how good it makes me feel to be here today. It is truly an honor to risk my life for you. An honor. Before I jump this motorcycle over these 19 cars — and I want you to know there’s not a Volkswagen or a Datsun in the row — before I sail cleanly over that last truck, I want to tell you that last night a kid came up to me and he said, “Mr Knievel, are you crazy? That jump you’re going to make is impossible, but I already have my tickets because I want to see you splatter.” That’s right, that’s what he said. And I told that boy last night that nothing is impossible. Now they told Columbus to sail across the ocean was impossible. They told the settlers to live in a wild land was impossible. They told the Wright Brothers to fly was impossible. And they probably told Neil Armstrong a walk on the moon was impossible. They tell Evel Knievel to jump a motorcycle across the Grand Canyon is impossible, and they say that every day. A Roman General in the time of Caesar had the motto: “If it possible, it is done. If it is impossible, it will be done.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I live by. – film introduction, George Hamilton
(1968 Triumph T 100 C)
Well he’s broken his arm, his legs, his back… he didn’t break his neck. I don’t understand it, but he didn’t break his neck.
Following his introduction, the story follows a flashback narrative through Knievel’s life.
(1968 Triumph T 100 C)
We have very little choice about our life. The only thing really left us is a choice about our death. And mine will be…glorious!
The film ends with Knievel successfully completing the jump at the Ontario Motor Speedway and riding off onto a dirt road which leads to the edge of Grand Canyon (at the time of production, the real Evel Knievel was hyping a jump over the Grand Canyon). – wikipedia
(Harley Davidson Sportster)
Enjoy!
- Corinna
Watch The Full Film
RIP George Jones. The Possum Has Passed
George Jones 1931-2013
Another great is lost. George’s melancholy yet uplifting tunes have always been with me through the good and bad. Able to bring me to tears and back, his records are never far away.
You will be greatly missed Possum.
- Corinna
The Devil At Your Feet
The Devil At Your Feet (2009)
Wednesday, April 24th
8pm – food and previews. Film starts at 8-30.
633 Grand St (bet Leonard & Manhattan), Bklyn, NY 11211
Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!
Delicious home made BBQ This week by Happy Homesteader…food hits the grill at 8pm, so come hungry and come early!!
NY based Filmmaker and traditional hot rod builder Brian Darwas has, as Atomic Hot Rods, released several in depth and entertaining feature documentaries. Each film covers a unique vehicular topic and Darwas’ tackles every subject’s history, characters and the overall culture, with an in depth yet fluid, fast paced style that will make anyone feel the need for speed.
Last summer, Cine Meccanica hosted the NYC Premier of Brian’s film, White Knuckle: The story of the Motorcycle Cannonball (2012). It was a great success, with racers and rides (including a 1911 Harley) in attendance, and We’re thrilled to be screening another. So, stop by, check out the film, meet the filmmaker and pick up a copy of the dvd!
- Corinna
Ride along with Hot Rod Builder and Award Winning Filmmaker Brian Darwas (The Road to Bonneville) as he travels over three thousand miles from The East Coast to The West Coast.
Get an inside look at two car clubs from Opposite Coasts (The Burbank Choppers and The Alter Boys) who share the same Ideals and Passion for Traditional Hot Rods and Customs!
Flatheads, Nailheads, and Vintage Steel! Take a ride inside the cars and sit down to hear the stories from the men who built them! This film is a true study in what Traditional Hot Rodding is really about!
“A Hot Rodding movie so intense it will leave your living room filled with exhaust and your carpet stained with grease!”
Find Cine Meccanica and Atomic Hot Rods on Facebook
Deeds Not Words.
MegaForce (1982)
Wednesday, April 17th
Film starts at 8:00pm
at Lady Jay’s: 633 Grand St, between Manhattan & Leonard, Bklyn, NY 11211
Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!
Don’t forget to visit the concession stand! This week’s menu by Happy Homesteader and a steal at only $8 a plate. Food’s on by 7:30, so come hungry and come early!!
Ace Hunter: Here comes The Egg…
Dallas: And that’s no “yolk.”
Directed by former stuntman Hal Needham. As the highest paid stuntman in the world, Hal Needham broke 56 bones, his back twice, punctured a lung and knocked out a few teeth. His career has included work on 4500 television episodes and 310 feature films as a stuntman, stunt coordinator, 2nd unit director and ultimately, director. He’s wrecked hundreds of cars, fell from tall buildings, got blown up, was dragged by horses, rescued the cast and crew from a Russian invasion in Czechoslovakia, set a world record for a boat stunt on Gator, jumped a rocket powered pick-up truck across a canal for a GM commercial and was the first human to test the car airbag! – IMDB
He also directed such Cine Meccanica favorites as Smokey and the Bandit (1977), and The Cannonball Run (1981). It was Needham that drove an ambulance in the real life outlaw cross country race, that the movie Cannonball Run was based on. – Corinna
Ace Hunter: That’s totally inapplicable to anything that’s going on here. And it’s _dumb_. Who told you that?
Dallas: You did!
The story involves two fictional countries, the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbor Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from the Gamibia incursion, Sardun sends Major Zara (Persis Khambatta) and General Byrne-White (Edward Mulhare) to ask the help of MegaForce – a secret mercenary army composed of international soldiers of fortune, equipped with advanced weapons and vehicles. The MegaForce leader, Commander Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick) accepts the peacekeeping mission when he learns his rival, and former military academy friend, Duke Gurerra (Henry Silva) is leading the Gamibia invasion.
Rank? Why ain’t nobody got a rank in Megaforce. ‘Cept the Commander, but we all call him Hunter.
While Hunter composes an elaborate battle plan to destroy Gurerra’s forces, Zara tries out to become a member of MegaForce. Although she passes the tests, Hunter’s growing feelings of love toward her prevent him from accepting her on for such a dangerous mission.
It’s all on the wheel, it all comes around.
Eventually, MegaForce successfully para-drops its attack vehicles into Gamibia and Hunter mounts his sneak attack against Gurerra’s forces. Although they manage to destroy his base, Gurerra has set a trap for them at the team’s only means of escape – a dry lake bed where the cargo planes will pick them up. Gurerra sends his tanks to secure the lake bed while Hunter comes up with a plan to attack Gurerra from behind by crossing over a mountain range the enemy tanks had turned their backs toward.
Oh, I just wanted to say good-bye and remind you that the good guys always win, even in the eighties.
The plan succeeds, and MegaForce manages to break through Gurerra’s tanks, but one of MegaForce’s cargo planes is damaged in the process. Having to abandon their hi-tech vehicles, (which they program to self-destruct), the team successfully makes it on foot to the last plane, except for Hunter. The commander, instead, makes his own dramatic escape on his motorcycle after it deploys airfoils and a rocket motor and catches up with the cargo plane in midair. Although he has lost the battle, Gurerra shows admiration for Hunter’s cunning, and he gives his old friend a thumbs up.
- Corinna
Trailer
This is the hell run that you make alone!
Angel Unchained(1970)
aka Hell’s Angel Unchained
Wednesday, April 10th
Film starts at 8:00pm
at Lady Jay’s: 633 Grand St, between Manhattan & Leonard, Bklyn, NY 11211
Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!
Don’t forget to visit the concession stand! This week’s menu by Happy Homesteader and a steal at only $8 a plate. Food’s on by 7:30, so come hungry and come early!!
If you leave, you’re just another citizen
The film opens in an amusement park. Bikers riding teacups…ya know, the usual. Until it of course spirals into a full out amusement park brawl. Angel, the VP is tired of gang life. He leaves his colors at the park, for Shotgun to take on, and hits the road.
Aww man. You’re really corny
At a small town gas station, the local cop is hassling some hippies. Angel takes their side and the cop backs off. One of the girls, Merilee, offers him food at their commune nearby, in trade for a ride on his bike. He obliges.
Angel, you are hung up in old ways of seeing.
Angel likes the commune…and Merilee. He chops wood, works the crops, skinny dips, and even learns to pot. It seems like paradise. Until all of a sudden, the commune is overrun with rednecks on dune buggies! They give the group 1 week to get out of town. Angel tries to talk to the locals, but it doesn’t go so well, so he head back to the one place he didn’t want to go…the old haunt biker bar, looking for backup.
Just remember man. Speed kills.
He invites the boys up to the country. He tells them of the cowboys vs hippies dilemma. After a bit of friendly ribbing, the boys agree to help out and everyone hits the road to the commune.
Let’s get it on man.
The bikers settle in and all seems groovy…until they get into the special stash of hallucinogens that is. They get greedy of course, and want the recipe for the ‘special cookies’ but the hippies refuse.
This place is a bummer man
I don’t dig it man. Let’s split.
Shotgun’s got Angels ex old lady as a mamma now, but that doesn’t stop him from making the moves on Angels new old lady Merilee. He doesn’t get far and the biker on biker feuding starts to build tensions. They want out but they’re not leaving without those ‘special cookies’.
Eat dirt pig
But when the Dune buggy riding, lasso looping cow-pokes send a message to the commune by roughing up one of the girls, a plan is devised to give the bike gang the ‘whamo’ (special cookies) if and only if they stick around long enough to fight the cowboys. Cut to dune buggies VS scrambler dirtbikes in the desert…and the fight is on!
I’d ask you what a good pacifist would do, but I don’t care
In the end, the hippies wins the war against the rednecks. The bikers are paid in ‘whamo’ and Angel is free to stay on at the commune to learn the art of pacifism with his old lady.
-Corinna
Trailer
