“Damn hippies. We’re just goin’ to have to do something about that, Dave.”

Drake’s rating: No chickens were harmed in the making of this film. Maybe.

Drake’s review: The “Angel” moniker was a constant presence in biker flick titles in the ‘60s and early ‘70s for one reason only: The Hells Angels were the most famous outlaw motorcycle club in the world. Sure, other clubs existed, and some had for decades,* but the Hells Angels was the club making the news and catching the public’s attention. So it was that B-movie after B-movie was churned out by low-budget studios capitalizing on the word. Some films, like The Wild Angels, featured a motorcycle gang with a similar name. Others coyly gave the name to a single character, the better to avoid breaching intellectual property rights.**

Angel Unchained goes the latter route, with Angel (Don Stroud, The Amityville Horror), the vice-president of the Exiles MC, looking to get out of the biker life. He’s feeling like there might be more to life than hanging out at a low-rent carnival with his buddies and getting into fights with other biker gangs, so he hits the open road and rides down the lonely highway as the credits roll.

Wait, get back here! The movie’s not over! Those were the opening credits. We still have nearly eighty minutes of Angel finding himself to go.

It’s not long before Angel rolls into Nowheresville, AZ, and casually helps out a couple of hippies being hassled by the local cowpokes. Grateful for his help, the hippies invite Angel back to their commune where he meets Tremaine, their charismatic leader. Staying at the commune, Angel eschews the way of the biker for the way of the hippy, man. Like, in a montage set to late ‘60s soft rock, he works at the commune, bonding with Merilee (Tyne Daly, The Enforcer) and with nature, man. He, like, makes clay pots and plants trees. He’s high on life, man.

Okay, okay, I’ll stop mocking the ‘60s now. Honestly, any decade that gave us both the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland is all right with me.

And everything’s all right for Angel as well, at least until the cowpokes re-enter the scene. Evidently angry that the hippies merely exist, the cowpokes harass them and four-wheel their way through the commune, tearing over the farmland and throwing chickens.

Yes, they throw chickens. That happens more than once in this flick, and I have no idea why.

Still, the cowpokes are an ornery lot and give the hippies one week to leave. Otherwise there’s going to be some serious ramifications, and things will likely escalate to turkey tossing.

That’s when Tremaine asks Angel if maybe, just maybe, his old club might want to show up and lend a helping hand. I mean, a violent outlaw biker club clashing with chicken-chucking cowboys can in no way go wrong for the peaceful hippies caught in the middle, right?

Yeah, that’s a bit of a miscalculation on Tremaine’s part. To be fair, he’s between a rock and a hard place here, but this might be a case where the remedy is worse than the disease.

Angel Unchained is a pretty decent biker flick, and much of that is thanks to the acting talent on hand. In addition to Stroud and Daly, we have biker movie regular Larry Bishop as the Exiles’ leader and veteran actor Aldo Ray in a small but amusing role as the town sheriff who really, really doesn’t want to get in between the bikers and the cowboys. And Luke Askew, a rising talent at the time who had been in such films as Easy Rider and Cool Hand Luke, shines as Tremaine. He keeps the role grounded and sympathetic, making a virtual deal with the devil in order to keep his people safe even though he knows that the odds of everything panning out in the end are remote. Still, he willingly clutches at straws because that’s really all he has.

But the ethical quandaries of Tremaine aside, Angel Unchained keeps the action going as bikers, cowboys, and chickens all tussle right up until the end credits roll. Which, yes, means the movie is over now and you’re free to leave. And apologies for any stray white feathers you may have picked up, but those ornery chickens just have a score to settle.

*Granted, Hollywood would have likely found it difficult to incorporate the Galloping Goose or the Boozefighters into catchy movie titles.

**The Hells Angels trademarked the club’s name in 1966.

Intermission!

• Fighting on top of a roller coaster! There’s some nice stunt work in this movie.
• Those strategically-placed wooden slats are obviously part of Tyne Daly’s “no nudity” clause.
• Just hanging out at the gas station all day, waiting to harass the hippies.
• Tremaine owns a motorcycle! And so a biker bromance with Angel begins.
• And just how do you “accidentally” stab someone with a pitchfork?
• I dunno. The cowboys have a ranch to work. It seems like they really should be too busy to harass hippies.
• Cattle prod-fu, as Joe Bob Briggs might say.
• And here come the bikers to save the hippies! This won’t go wrong. AT ALL.
• I just keep wondering if those were stunt chickens.
• Teaching hippies how to fight is a predictably uphill battle.
• Uh-oh. The bikers found the “magic cookies.”
• Aw, kind of a bummer ending. See, this is why Justin throws shade at ‘70s flicks. I might have convinced him to watch this one, but not now.
• OK, Justin was never going to watch this movie. But you can blame him for this review if you’re so inclined. He merely had to mention biker movies on the latest podcast to make my little brain go, “Hey! This sounds like an imperative for me to review another biker flick!”