Angel Unchained

Lee Madden – 1970 – USA

It’s motorbikes versus dune-buggies as hippies and bikers join forces to defend a pathetic dirt farm from an attack by local rednecks who want them out.  After a seemingly pointless brawl in an amusement park, Angel (Don Stroud) aging vice-president of the Nomads, decides to take a leave of absence from the club to take a little vacation.  He isn’t far into the California desert before he runs into intolerant yokels and a pair of hippies at a gas station.  The girl (Tyne Daly) hops on his bike and she leads him to her commune, where Luke Askew presides over a ragtag group of hippies trying to live apart from the modern world on a tiny piece of arid land.  While not buying into their romantic notions wholeheartedly, Angels nevertheless grows fond of the group and when the rednecks close in, he heads back to Frisco to persuade his biker pals to ride to the rescue; (which they're happy to do as long as there are drugs, bear and women in it for them).  One of a series of AIP biker flicks – (the “cycle cycle”) – that came in the wake of Roger Corman’s great hit The Wild Angels (1966), Angel Unchained probably isn’t among the best of the bunch, but it’s fun premise and stark simplicity makes it very interesting.  Director Lee Madden also made Hell's Angels, '69 the previous year.