Always like Jack Nicholson and some how missed this picture when he was very young and starting on a great career of acting. For some reason I did not feel like he fit very well in his role as a recruit of the California Hell's Angels. Jack gets roughed up and beaten by a bunch of swabbies in a carnival, who made the fight a Three Against One sort of battle. When his newly acquainted friends of the Hell's Angels find out, an all out war gets into progress. As you can expect, there are plenty of hot to trot sexual gals with the gang who seem to go from one guy to the next in order to please and make them comfortable, no one woman for each guy. However, there is an exception, a couple wants to make there love making official and practically drive their bikes right into a church near Las Vegas, Nevada. Just remember, this film was produced in 1967 and it was a big shocker in those DAYS !

If you were to take a time capsule back to the 1960's and told anybody that eventually Jack Nicholson would be one of the most honored actors at the Academy Awards, they'd probably try to have you committed. Having been around for a decade when this was made, he certainly wasn't anybody's favorite this video, a cult actor eventually made it into the mainstream. But his 1960's work is worth seeking out for a time capsule because indeed, it is a look at a generation that moved on and a lifestyle that thankfully restricts its activities to appearances to rare occasions and gets more laughed at as a dinosaur of modern times.

This is a vile and ugly, senseless film about a bunch of idiotic rebels with no causes seen traveling across the country in many famous hotspots over some snazzy opening credits, led by Adam Roarke. He makes the hugs mistake of recruiting gas station attendant Nicholson who moves in on Roarke's squeeze, Sabrina Scharf. She looks great in a mullet by the way. There really is no plot, just a bunch of violent segments filled with really bad actors, and with no plot, it's not really worth seeing, unless you're a sixties hipster looking for a flashback. How dozens of these films got made is beyond me, but they do represent 60's counterculture, so I guess for that aspect, it does hold a little bit of Interest.

I found "Hell's Angels on Wheels" on a disc containing three Jack Nicholson films. However, the print quality on "Jack Nicholson: Cult Classics" was pretty bad and I assume there must be better quality prints available somewhere--especially since at least two of the films (perhaps all three) are widely available from many different distributors.

The plot of "Hell's Angels on Wheels" is amazingly slim and it looks as if most of the movie was unscripted and the filmmakers just filmed these folks doing all kids of things--some illegal, some just annoying. At one point, an angry young guy (Nicholson) gets in good with the gang and is soon allowed to ride with them. During the course of the film there are quite a few fights and a lot of making out--though the level of violence and amount of skin you see is very, very limited and the film is pretty tame compared to some of the latter biker films. Now this isn't to say it's a family film--as there are a couple murders along the way. As for Nicholson, eventually he gets tired of the scene and it ends with a face-off with the leader of the pack. How it all ends is really stupid--so stupid you need to see it to believe it.

"Hell's Angels on Wheels" isn't a very good film but it is watchable. Directionless much of the time, of course, but oddly compelling in a voyeuristic sort of way. An odd glimpse into the 1960s, that's for sure and definitely NOT a film for the average viewer.