Oh, boy! This was quite an awful motorcycle gang flick I just watched on YouTube. It was also the second that featured a performance by the recently deceased Casey Kasem-of which The Glory Stompers was the first-and he was also a co-executive producer here with Mike Curb. They previously were associate producers on TGS. Casey played the pimp brother of Bruce Dern's Keeg-a cycle gang leader capable of great anger. It was a hoot seeing Kasem on the phone while entertaining some bikini-clad ladies at the pool! Unfortunately, that was his only appearance. The rest of the movie has sketch artist Chris Robinson being harassed by Dern and his gang until Robinson gets wounded and taken care of by Melody "Wrangler Jane" Patterson-who is one of Dern's female workers. The main thrust of the plot concerns Dern's attempts to make sure Robinson never draws pictures of them again-so he won't show them to the cops-by making sure his hands are crippled. But, really, there's just senseless brutality most of the time, or at the very least, some babbling dialogue about doing such. Oh, yes, there's also a couple of interesting female players playing types like Maray Ayres playing the tough woman who loves Dern despite his treatment of her and Karen Ciral as a big, brassy blonde who gets gang raped by the gang. (Dig the drilling noise that plays during that scene!) Ms. Patterson herself does have a nice nude scene whether posing for Chris or sleeping with him. Other than those scenes, I felt The Cycle Savages was a waste of time for me. Good thing Dern would go on to better things...

I think this movie will continue to be viewed and indeed will influence behavior of future bikers. So many of us were drawn into this scene because of these movies. This movie in particular has great shots of ratty motorcycles and the people who ride them. What more could a greasy biker ask for? Lee Marvin as Chino in The Wild Ones is a case in point. He rode a Harley and led the Beetles. Not much press on this, but bikers ate it up! Marlon was on various British iron, younger cousins to the Indians and Harleys and lesser known American mounts running the back roads of America back then. Keeg is a BAD mammajamma, but he has Harley oil running through his veins. Great portrayal by Bruce Dern. So many of us got started on two wheels just to express our displeasure with the crowd. Motorcycling is a solo act, outside the mainstream. Yeah, my doctor and my lawyer ride Harleys now, and I don't think they'd like this movie. It wasn't meant for them. It was to scare the mother of their children; it was to let their young sons know there is an avenue for them to express their fear and angst. Gitchyermotr runnin! Head out on the highway lookin for adventure, and whatever comes my way!' The future pimps of this country will continue to pay homage to the craft through the blaxsploitation flicks of the 60s and 70s. Old lure, slang, culture, etc is on display through these works of art. Long live the B movie!

**SPOILERS** Romico doing sketches of scenery around town gets the attention of a gang of bikers who feel that their privacy had been invaded. The bikers then take it upon themselves to break the artists hands for doing it. You wonder just what's the big deal since the bikers, lead by this spaced out lunatic Keeg, are really doing nothing illegal at the time and can easily be photographed by dozens of people, including the police themselves who must have a number of their mug shots. The bikers getting Romico alone in his apartment house has Keeg slicing him in the stomach with a straight edge razor. Thats to teach Romico a lesson and keep him from drawing them but that just gets Romico, after he recovers, angrier. It turns out that Keeg and his gang are out on the streets picking up and recruiting young girls for this big-time Las Vages pimp that they work for.The thought that Romico's drawings of Keeg and his boys, and girls, will alert the local vice squad to his actions are as ridicules as Keeg himself. Since the Vice Squad headed by Det. Scott Bardy have been on to him for some time and must have an album of photos of his and his gang. The only reason you can gather for his unbalanced and bazaar actions is that he's suffering from some kind of paranoia from all the drugs and booze he's been taking and drinking. Romico injury meanwhile is being taken care of by this quack doctor and Lea who later turns out to be a spy for Keeg. The doctor gets Romico out of his apartment and into Lea's place where Romioc is given a bowl of hot soup and some close and warm attention from Lea has Keeg's bikers break into Romico's pad and steal his drawings. With Romico finding out that his place had been ransacked by the bikers and that his prize sword, who's significances is never explained to the audience, stolen he immediately goes to their hideout and beats up two of the bikers thus getting his sword back from them and leaving the place in shambles. This makes Keeg even more determined to do in Romico and then plans to kidnap him and break his hands so he'll never draw again. We also have this little episode in the movie where Keeg and his bikers rob this guy of his motorcycle in broad daylight at a local park beating him unconscious. All this seemed to be put in just to show how wild and crazy he and his boys. The scene had really nothing to do with either Romico Lea or later Janie, who was inducted into Keegs club and then gang raped and shot up with drugs and acid. It was Janie who wanted to join Keeg's gang, and then turned into a hooker and junkie by doing it, that eventually brought him down by almost dropping dead in the park. Janie tells the vice squad at the hospital what Keeg and his gang did, this gives the police the proof that they need to bust him and him gang. Keeg meanwhile had Romico kidnapped and brought to his hideout where his hands were about to be crushed in a vice. It's then that Lea changes her mind about betraying Romico and comes to his rescue freeing him by pulling a gun out on Keeg & Co. and having Romico released.The cops now on their way to the bikers hideout, after being told by Janie where it was, has Keegs about to take off but his biker moll Sandy is now afraid that he's leaving her. Keeg told Sandy Earlie that she doesn't have what it takes to be a member of his "exclusive" organization.Sandy grabbing Lea's gun and shooting wildly alerts the cops and has Keeg running for his life as all the other bikers scatter like a bunch of cockroaches when you turn the lights on. Onside Sandy who couldn't hit Keeg at point blank range in the clubhouse shoots wildly at the motorcycle fleeing Keeg from some 100 feet away, the gun actually jerks upwards before it goes off,and amazingly Sandy hits Keeg square on target killing him instantly. The movie ends with Sandy crying and holding the dying Keeg in her arms as the scene turns, or morphs, into one of Romico's drawings. More like a home movie then anything else with Bruce Dern as Keeg doing a good job looking like he's strung out on drugs. Chris Robinson as the sensitive and courageous artist Rominco looks as if he's sorry that he's in the movie and trying to keep a straight face in all the scenes he's in. Even when his hands are being screwed into a vice Robinson is so unconcerned to what's happening to him that he looks like his mind, or concentration, is anywhere but in the scene that he's in!

'The Cycle Savages' is 60s biker exploitation trash par excellence! Future 'Bold And The Beautiful' soap star Chris Robinson plays Romko, a nice guy artist. Cult legend Bruce Dern ('The Wild Angels', 'Silent Running', 'The Trip', 'Psych-Out') plays Keeg, a sadistic noogoodnik biker type. Keeg takes offense at Romko sketching him and his fellow bikers and roughs the guy up. Becoming obsessed he declares he will destroy Romko's hands if he ever catches him drawing again. Romko recuperates from his injuries with the help of nice girl Lea (Melody Patterson, who sent many a pre-pubescent boy's heart a flutter when she played Wrangler Jane in 'F-Troop'). Meanwhile Keeg and the boys carry on with what comes naturally - enticing local high school girls to their pad, dosing them with acid, gang raping them, and passing them on to his pimp brother (played by DJ Casey Kasem, who also co-produced!). Romko begins to fall in love with Lea not realizing that she is being intimidated by Keeg into spying on him. Remember just one more sketch and it's bye-bye to his hands! 'The Cycle Savages' is a cut above similarly trashy biker exploitation movies from this period (e.g. 'Hells Angels On Wheels', 'The Rebel Rousers') because of the memorable performance by Bruce Dern, one of the nastiest of his whole career! If like me you can't get enough of vintage Dern action then 'The Cycle Savages' is a must see! On top of that, Melody Patterson is easy on the eye (and has some very subtle nude scenes which sadly reveal virtually nothing), and there is a goofy fuzz guitar driven score that sounds like some old square geezer pretending (unsuccessfully!) to be Davie Allen. Great stuff!