Yes, I'm admitting I was there, and enjoyed the entire film process. Yes, the director included the rape scene, and filmed an "Insert" close-up shot of the girls face just for dramatic effect. The young lady in question was placed against a tree trunk, and four of us held her down while she thrashed about dramatically. Great performance, kudos. As I recall, I was stationed on her right hand, and great fun was had by all.The party scene, took at least two tries, due to the over enthusiastic performance by all in the room. The beer was warm, and spewed all over the place. Some of the girls needed to be paid additional money to go topless, and others needed to be paid to leave the top on. We filmed at the old (now closed) Calabasas movie ranch, some on the El Mirage dry lake, some at the still operating "Rock House". The entire production was supported by "Cinemobile Systems" and I drove the small Cinemobile Ford truck with all the equipment aboard.The second unit I believe was near Glamis CA. for the dune-buggy stuff. (I was not on the second unit crew) I recently found this entire film on YouTube.com and enjoyed watching it again.

What an awful movie ... A bunch of "hip" motorcyclists invade a California ghost town called "Lost Cause". There, they confront a rival gang of bikers and some hippies. The story has no real point to it, nor any theme that I could detect.There are way too many characters. And none of them are interesting. But they sure are "tough". They drink lots of booze. They smoke. They swear. They fight. They kiss their babes. They kick up a lot of ruckus. They emit dialogue like: "Lay it on me man" ... "I don't want a beer now, man" ... "Let's dig it, man" ... "I hope this works, man" ... "Make it good, man". They all act like rowdy ten-year-olds on a school playground.And that playground is not the least bit interesting. Lost Cause looks like the back lot of some movie studio. The film's color cinematography is dreadful. Some of the images are either blurred or out of focus. Interior lighting is too dim. You would think that the filmmaker could have at least inserted some good music from that era; alas, no.Just because it's a biker movie doesn't mean that viewers will tolerate a shabby screenplay, bad acting, or poor quality visuals. There are good biker films out there. "Angels Hard As They Come" is not one of them. At least the ghost town has an appropriate name. It's a good metaphor for this film.

On the one hand, after watching Angels Hard as They Come, I could understand why it's not higher rated or even been seen anymore than the common garden-variety B-movie biker flick, as it is true shamelessly Corman-style. On the other hand, I ended really liking how it was executed. The collaborators, Joe Viola and Jonathan Demme, wring out plenty of dirty fun out of such violent and twisted material without 'softening' it up like some biker movies of the period. It's got almost no characters from the 'outside' world, just bikers, and maybe a few hippies (and yes, one of them an out-of-place and amusingly one-note Gary Busey). So part of the entertainment comes from bikers just being as rough and crazy as possible. But with this the writers come up with some unexpectedly funny moments, some more harsh than others, and sometimes even commenting on some of the absurdities of the Dragons. This is done dialog-wise many times- as Viola's style isn't nearly as strong or affecting as Demme provides- and sometimes through ideas shown and it all being realistic even as its crudely artificial.One such scene, as a quick example, is when the leader of the pack General (Charles Dierkop as a well-played maniac) is seen from the waist up having short moment of pleasure, then as the camera pans down his motorcycle is getting a cleaning (pun intended, but then the title itself is almost there just for a goof). Or in having one of the side characters, the one black character of a story, adrift in the desert, almost putting to a stop the Corman rule of there being almost constant danger &/or fights &/or sex/nudity/et all. Other ideas abound in the crazy extremities that the Dragons go through against the three Angels (one being Scott Glenn in maybe the best 'acting' of the film), including a final idea that never does come to fruition. All through, the filmmakers basically acknowledge what kind of film they're making, and don't skimp out on the early biker movies might not have dealt with, at least as much. Rape, racism, torture, pure decadence and decay in the devastation. But the factor of it all having practically a Western-movie element to it, a B-Western at that, is not thrown away for a story without focus.It's arcane and simplistic in music, usually exploitative in themes and character, and it's got the cinematic flavor of a beer soaked ashtray. But to hell if it isn't one of my favorites of its kind, if only on the most guilty-pleasure level.

Fans of 1960/70s exploitation movies will flip over this one! Jonathan Demme originally pitched the project to Roger Corman as "a biker Rashomon". Now that's not exactly how it ended up, but it's still terrific viewing for cult fans nonetheless. Demme co-wrote and co-produced and his pal Joe Viola directed. Viola and Demme were then involved with the women-in-prison movies 'The Hot Box' and 'Black Mama, White Mama' before they parted ways. Viola concentrated on writing for TV while Demme eventually became a major Hollywood director. Scott Glenn, who in the 90s co-starred in Demme's enormously successful 'The Silence Of The Lambs', plays Long John, a biker who gets invited to a ghost town where some Hell's Angels are partying with some local hippies. Unfortunately a girl is murdered and Long John and his pals are accused by the bikers leader The General (Charles Dierkop, of 'Police Woman' fame, and the Killer Santa in 'Silent Night, Deadly Night'). They face a kangaroo court and then... well, imagine your worst. Glenn and Dierkop are both great to watch but the real icing on the cake is the supporting cast which includes Gary Busey as an unlikely hippie, biker regular Gary Littlejohn, 'Vanishing Point's nude motorcycle girl Gilda Texter, James Inglehart (Randy Black in Russ Meyer's trash classic 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls'), Janet Wood (who as Sweet Li'L Alice featured in the unforgettable naked knife fight with Raven De La Croix in Meyer's 'Up!'), and even - get this! - the fat guy from Sam Fuller's 'Shock Corridor' (Larry Tucker) as a cat called Lucifer! Such a cast makes 'Angels Hard As They Come' essential viewing for all fans of psychotronic cinema! Don't overlook this forgotten biker gem.