“Gabriel, can’t you see we’re menacing someone?”

Drake’s rating: The leather is only lukewarm.

Drake’s review: Lee Frost was a veteran exploitation director by 1971. Kicking off his career shooting monster nudies in the early ‘60s, he teamed with producer Wes Bishop to churn out low-budget fare with titles like Hot Spur, Chain Gang Women, and Love Camp 7 over the next decade. By the time he got behind the camera to direct the outlaw biker flick Chrome & Hot Leather, Frost should have been well aware of what the drive-in circuit was looking for.

What he gave them, however, was a tepid flick that wastes the time of the acting talent involved.

Chrome & Hot Leather should be a good biker flick. The king of the B-movie heavies, William Smith, is on hand, as is Larry Bishop, a biker movie regular. Both actors do a good job, but unfortunately the film decides that, instead of being a straight-up biker flick, it wants to inject a nonsensical revenge plot into the mix and let that take over the screen time.

It all starts when a pair of women driving down the road get into the middle of a pack of bikers. Most of the bikers ignore them, but Casey (Michael Haynes) makes threatening noises and, when they attempt to get away, he’s knocked off of his bike. Enraged, Casey takes off after them, smashes his chain into their windshield, and they drive off of a cliff. T.J. (Smith), the leader of the club, wants to stick around to help, but when witnesses start to come along he orders everyone to skedaddle. Unfortunately for the bikers, and the audience, one of the girls was engaged to a Green Beret, and he woodenly swears to track down the bikers and make them pay.

Enlisting the help of three of his army buddies, Mitch (Tony Young), the bereaved Green Beret whose expression rarely changes from one of resigned stoicism, tries to find out which gang was involved with his fiancee’s death. He dons denim, sports a kicky beaded choker and gets himself a Kawasaki so that he can better blend into the outlaw biker subculture.

Yes, that’s right. A Kawasaki. There’s even a motorcycle training montage as the four Green Berets learn to ride them. And then they get themselves vests and patches in the shape of sergeant stripes. Disappointingly, they don’t call themselves the Sarges.

None of this really matters, though, because once they find the bikers they were looking for, they instantly become Green Berets again, illegally requisition an army vehicle and military ordnance, and go on the attack. Now it might just be me, but I’m pretty sure the bikers could make a strong case that coming under assault from mortar fire and grenades is a pretty clear case of attempted murder, and should probably land the Green Berets in Leavenworth for a couple of decades.

Despite the rather anemic revenge angle, Chrome & Hot Leather isn’t a bad movie. Both William Smith and Larry Bishop (as Gabriel, the pinball-obsessed biker) put their all into the film, and they make it a worthwhile watch. The problem is, the movie surrounding them is rather pedestrian. Instead of a gritty exploitation flick we get a bloodless affair that would be right at home as an ABC Movie of the Week. It’s not good, certainly, but neither is it bad enough to be truly memorable. Instead, it’s just stunningly mediocre, which is a pretty sad thing for an exploitation movie to be.

Intermission!

• One of Mitch’s army buddies is played by Marvin Gaye, in his second and final outing as an actor.
• Hey, Sitting Duck! Another of the buddies is Peter Brown, who played Ron in the MST3K classic Kitten with a Whip! I’m beginning to think that movie is a nexus point for cult cinema.
• The blonde woman in the car is Cherie Moor, who would soon change her name to Cheryl Ladd.
• That car crash looks like it was stolen from a high school driver’s ed film.
• I’m still obsessing over Mitch’s beaded choker. Why, man? WHY?
• Oh, I see. The Kawasakis can drive over dirt while the Harley-Davidson’s get stuck, thus revealing that the Green Berets had a plan of somehow luring the bikers off-road and setting up their fiendish trap when they were only twenty minutes or so into the movie. That’s some Lex Luthor-worthy 4D chess.
• In the ‘70s, the karate chop was a game changer. Menaced by a hood twice your size? Karate chop. Fighting off a trio of goons? Karate chop. Need some kindling but forgot your axe? Karate chop.
• Enough with the smoke! I can look out my windows and see that!