Today’s youth culture seems quite tame when compared to the cheap thrills exhibited in this selection of outlaw biker movie posters from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Films like Twilight or (your favorite Marvel superhero here) can hardly compete with The Cycle Savages (starring Bruce Dern), Werewolves on Wheels (genius idea, though apparently the speeding lycanthropes howl and growl for a mere five minutes in this flick) or Angels: Hard As They Come, an early Jonathan Demme movie in which “Big men with throbbing machines” met their match in “the girls who can take them on.” Fnarr..Fnarr…
These films mixed Western outlaw narratives (sometimes directly lifted from other movies) with the heightened anxieties of suburban parental America and a dash of spice from some real Hell’s Angels to give it flavor. They also offered meaty roles for the likes of Bruce Dern, John Cassavetes, Alex Rocco, (the ubiquitous) Jack Nicholson, Ann-Margret, Jane Russell and even Casey Kasem, and a chance for many a young director to learn their trade. Taking a look at these posters one can almost smell the grease and gas fumes from here.
More outlaw bikers after the jump…