Here's something you wouldn't expect but it's true for the moment, Charles Martin Smith has four more acting credits to his name here on IMDb than his contemporary Ron Howard. Of course there's no matching Howard's career output since he also appeared in so many TV series episodes that don't count individually, but I thought that was interesting. Both are still active so I guess their stats will be a moving target for a while, but at least at the time I write this, Smith has Howard edged by four.Well this one's a tough call. You'd think the three farm boys would eventually come around to the error of their ways, and they did actually, but in one of those 'careful what you wish for' sort of ways. At least one of them should have been wary enough to figure Spikes (Lee Marvin) would turn on them after he told them about killing his wife. OK, in a convoluted way he made it sound like she had it coming, but that would have been a hint that once there was a bounty on their heads, all bets of friendship would be off the table.I wonder if it was inadvertent or intentional, but at one point Spikes tells Will (Gary Grimes), Les (Howard) and Tod (Smith) that the citizens of Uvalde "ain't expectin' a wild bunch like us". Either way it was kind of a neat tribute to the 1969 film.One thing I noticed here is something I never had before, and it's probably due to Lee Marvin's look as the outlaw Spikes. He had that uncharacteristic bushy white mustache and whenever he was positioned a certain way he looked the spitting image of my next door neighbor. The next time I see him in the yard I'll have to let him know. Marvin had more hair though.

Lee Marvin has played the role of crusty gunslinger many times, and he does not disappoint here. The story of three farm boys throwing in with the wily bank robber is both believable and different. The film is never dull, with Marvin spewing forth quotable lines throughout. This is not some sugar coated view of their desperate situation as hunted men, but rather a realistic look at the downside of breaking the law. Of course the boys elicit sympathy, even though they are killers, no different than their mentor. "The Spikes Gang" is one of those movies that far exceeds expectations, is worth seeking out, and not easily forgotten. - MERK

There is an old myth about the country girl who finds a poisonous snake freezing in the snow. She picks him up and brings him home, nursing him back to health, at which point he bites her on the cheek. As she lays there dying she asks, "Why have you done this to me?" He answers while slithering off, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake." "The Spikes Gang" begins with three teenage boys finding outlaw Lee Marvin (Spikes) wounded and dying on the ground, and they hide him in the back of the barn where they can nurse him back to health. Instead of killing them, he thanks them kindly and departs- but maybe his poison seed has been planted because soon the boys abandon their home and set off on the road and an eventual life of crime.That's the story, and much of it works, but just as much fails. There is a pervading heavy-handed morality lesson at work here, and it takes the joy out of what could have been a great film. The three boys- desperate, penniless, and starving for food- finally decide to rob a bank. Not only does the sheriff walk in during the robbery, they accidentally kill a state senator passing by and lose ALL THE MONEY during the escape. In the next scene they're penniless again begging for food.Hold the phone, but isn't movie crime supposed to be FUN? Aren't we as the audience supposed to get SOME vicarious thrill from these adrenaline-fueled exploits? The day after the botched robbery the boys wallow in guilt and regret... they've KILLED! They've STOLEN! God is no longer smiling at them! They do everything but turn themselves in, surprising since they actually discuss the possibility.Eventually they catch up with Spikes who becomes their surrogate "evil" father-figure (is he what happens if you accept Satan as your lord and master?) Spikes liberates the trio from their feeble attempts at straight jobs and gives them a proper makeover so they can join his gang. We get a montage/training sequence of Marvin buying them new clothes, fancy meals and teaching them to shoot. Is THIS sequence any fun? Naw, we know the boys are Hellbound and therefore incapable of joy.The joy comes from Lee Marvin. He is pitch-perfect in a role that could have easily been hokey or over-the-top. Marvin plays Spikes as a human being, the product of his environment. He slips seamlessly between malicious mentor and cold-blooded killer... he is as he says, "just a man trying to survive." (As a side note I must nominate this film for "Worst Blood In A Motion Picture" category. It appears as thick, gloppy paint so bright it might burn your retinas. One character uses his hand to clot a wound but looks more like he's squeezing a tomato through his fingers.)By the time the film comes to its' drawn-out finale (the movie's at least twenty minutes too long) I had given up hope for a happy ending, given up hope for a satisfying ending... we got the message early on that crime doesn't pay and we're just waiting for the period. Guilt-ridden, morally tortured, spiritually defeated cowboys rarely appear in good Westerns.There's a reason.GRADE: C+

I ran this film in my cinema as a double feature with a western called BILLY TWO HATS. I apologize. I shouldn't really because only 4 people came on the two nights it showed. BILLY TWO HATS featured Desi Arnaz Jnr as an Indian. It was filmed in Israel. Maybe Desi Jnr was making this in between takes of this glorious musical nobody saw either, called MARCO about.....Marco Polo. I am just aghast at all this. Anyway, THE SPIKES GANG is a rustic teenage crime drama from the B grade school of drive in movie-making that saw Bonnie and Clyde...Bloody Mama... Bullet For Pretty Boy...Boxcar Bertha or whatever. It has a good cast and solid production values. But nobody really wanted to see it and it was probably always doomed to be half of a double feature in a bumpkin drive in. Ron Howard in this and Desi Arnaz Jnr in the other. The local kids just thought this was nothing. In the 80s we had Matt Dillon films to take their place...like KANSAS.