Motorcycle Duel…With Death To The Loser!

Motorcycle Gang (1957)

Wednesday, July 3rd

8pm – food and previews. Film starts at 8:30 sharp.

Lady Jay’s,

633 Grand St (bet Leonard & Manhattan), Bklyn, NY 11211

Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!

Delicious home cooking by Happy Homesteader…This week’s menu is TACOS! so come hungry and come early!!

Hey what’re you trying to do, start a fire.

Nick, the leader of a small town cicle gang returns after a 2 year stretch in the clink for clipping an old man during a drag. To his surprise, the new head cat, Randy (who walked form that same wrap with only a suspended sentence), has taken the club square. He’s got them teamed up with the local race set, and their priorities have switched form tearing up the town, to qualifying for the regionals. Nick tries to take the gang back, but Randy’s not quite as square as he looks. I uh thought I knew every cicle cat in town.

Teresa ‘Terry the Terrible’ is new in town. Staying with her uncle for the summer, she’s got only one thing on her mind…burning rubber.

You’re a ‘shol’…a sharp doll

She’s hard to miss, and the local bike set is quick to spot her. Randy’s smitten and invites her down to the Blue Moon to meet the rest of the kids.

Burning rubber is my one big vice. Last guy who tried this lost an arm and a leg.

Pretty quick, Terry gets herself involved with both Nick and Randy, which only fuels their riff. Randy’s still on probation so street fights are out. He challenges Nick to the next PNG event, a 100mile off rode race.

You’ve got a one cylinder mind

Racing neck and neck, Randy wins by a hair even with Nick riding dirty. Of course, Nick’s a sore loser and challenges Randy to a race of his own. Pushed too far, Randy agrees. Look who’s having trouble with their clutch assembly.

After a series of stunts, Randy wipes out riding the rails after Nick sabotages the track. Now, Randy’s in the hospital and the kid’s aren’t impressed with Terry’s antics playing both sides anymore. She’s lost her fella, her friends and ruined her and Randy’s shot at the regionals. Remember when you told me that maturity was setting in, and I told you I hoped it wasn’t contagious?…well, it is.

Nick doesn’t mind her tactics however, and he still wants her, but now Terry has seem the error of her ways and is disgusted. Terry gets  Randy to forgive her and take her back. PNG also forgives them and Randy is allowed to race the regionals.

These aren’t PNG men…these are alley cats on motor cicles. There’s a big difference.

Nick and his sore loser goons resort to booze and rebel rousing. They terrorize a local café and take the owners hostage. Randy and the gang come to the rescue with the help of he race organizers…Nick and the hods land back in the clink. Terry and Randy settle down, and all is well in Coolsville, daddy-O!

– Corinna Mantlo

See screen shots of the films on the FLICKR page

Trailer

 

 

Teenage cicle hounds out for one thing…Thrills!

Motorcycle Gang was remade in 1994 by John Milius and starring Gerald McRaney and Jake Busey as part of Showtime’s series Rebel Highway.

Rebel Highway was a short-lived revival of American International Pictures created and produced by Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff and Debra Hill for the Showtime channel in 1994. The concept was 10-week series of 1950s “drive-in classic” B-movies remade “with a ’90s edge”. The impetus for the series, according to Arkoff was, “what it would be like if you made Rebel Without a Cause today. It would be more lurid, sexier, and much more dangerous, and you definitely would have had Natalie Wood‘s top off”. Originally, Arkoff wanted to call the series, Raging Hormones but Showtime decided on Rebel Highway instead. Arkoff and Hill invited several directors to pick a title from one of Samuel Arkoff’s movies, hire their own writers and create a story that could resemble the original if they wanted. In addition, they had the right to a final cut and select their own director of photography and the editor. Each director was given a $1.3 million budget and 12 days to shoot it with a cast of young, up and coming actors and actresses. According to Arkoff, the appeal to directors was that, “They weren’t hampered by big studios saying, ‘You can’t do this or that.’ And all the directors paid very close attention to the detail of the era. We want these shows to be fun for the younger generation and fun for the older generation”.

The series premiered with Robert Rodriguez‘s Roadracers on July 22, 1994.

The Rebel Highway films

• Girls in Prison – Directed by John McNaughton and starring Anne Heche and Ione Skye.
• Dragstrip Girl – Directed by Mary Lambert and starring Mark Dacascos and Natasha Gregson Wagner.
• Shake, Rattle and Rock! – Directed by Allan Arkush and starring Renée Zellweger and Howie Mandel.
• Runaway Daughters – Directed by Joe Dante and starring Julie Bowen and Paul Rudd.
• Roadracers – Directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring David Arquette and Salma Hayek.
• Reform School Girl – Directed by Jonathan Kaplan and starring Aimee Graham and Matt LeBlanc.
• Motorcycle Gang – Directed by John Milius and starring Gerald McRaney and Jake Busey.
• Jailbreakers – Directed by William Friedkin and starring Antonio Sabato Jr. and Shannen Doherty.
• Cool and the Crazy – Directed by Ralph Bakshi and starring Jared Leto and Alicia Silverstone.
• Confessions of a Sorority Girl – Directed by Uli Edel and starring Jamie Luner and Alyssa Milano.