After serving a tour in Vietnam, "Mike" (Tom Stern) returns to his hometown to discover that his old motorcycle gang has essentially been run out of town by the local law enforcement and that a new person named "George" (Jay York) has since taken over as the leader. Not happy that Mike is now muscling in on his gang, George initiates a fight with him which turns out quite bad--for George. As a result Mike becomes the leader and soon gets the attractive girl (Arlene Martel as "Ginger") as well. But rather than be satisfied with what he has, Mike has a grand plan for uniting motorcycle gangs across the country with none other than himself as the overall leader. Needless to say, this idea is fraught with difficulty. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that I thought this was one of the better "motorcycle movies" made thus far. I say this because the plot was realistic and the acting was pretty good as well. In any case, I rate this movie as slightly above average and recommend it to all enthusiasts of this particular sub-genre.

Although I'm usually a big fan of drive-in movies, I have to confess that motorcycle gang movies kind of leave me cold. So I might be writing this review with some prejudice, but I think that this particular motorcycle movie will be badly judged by other drive-in movie fans. The biggest problem with it is how slow and uneventful it is. In the first half of the movie, almost nothing of consequence happens. It's almost all padding. There's a bit more plot in the second half of the movie, but the movie still feels slow and lacking bite. Another big problem with the movie is that the main character (played by Tom Stern) is not developed very well; we never quite sense what makes him tick and what motivates him. By the way, while the movie got an "R" rating back in 1968, it's not very explicit by today's standards; it would get a "PG-13" rating at most if submitted to the MPAA today.

Vietnam war veteran Mike (a solid and engaging performance by Tom Stern) returns home and becomes president of the local top biker gang. However, problems with the police ultimately leads to all-out war between the bikers and the cops. Director Bruce Kessler maintains a snappy pace throughout, stages the requisite rough'n'tumble fights with aplomb, and provides a few startling moments of raw violence. The Harley hounds are a quirky and colorful bunch: Ted Markland as the easygoing Smiley, Paul Bertoya as the jolly, yet crazy and dangerous Nutty Norman, Jimmy Murphy as amiable runt Tiny Tim, and Stephen Oliver as the scruffy Speed. Jack Starrett does his customary professional job as pragmatic police captain Bingham, who tries to keep the peace to increasingly minute avail. Fetching brunette Arlene Martel also registers well as sassy and enticing free spirit Ginger. Jerome Wish's compact script offers a nice central theme on how straight society goes out of its way to persecute anybody who's different. Herman Knox's vibrant cinematography gives the picture a pleasing bright look. The get-down groovy soundtrack by Stu Phillips and the cool soundtrack both hit the way funky spot. A fun drive-in romp.

I worked with Tom in Angels From Hell. We worked together after the movie to produce our own biker movie. I had a lot of time and money in lining up the bikers for him. I got the bikers to really fix up their scooters 'cuz they were going to be paid well in the upcoming movie. After everybody had finished their bikes, I had them come together for Tom's inspection. For arranging all of the bikers, Tom had promised me a big part in the movie. On my last visit to Tom's office in Hollywood, he told me that he would contact me when he was ready to film. I waited until I found out the the HA were filming on location (Hells Angels 69). We rode out to location and talked with Terry The Tramp and Tiny. Tom had managed to get the real HA to do the picture and left me and my boys out. plus the HA weren't happy working with him at all.Tom is a good actor but he is a user/manipulator. Whether this has kept him from going to the top, I don't know. Dirty Denny