Truly Dreadful Film

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I collect old, cheap biker movies. The main reason for that is to scope out the motorcycles of the era. This "Hard Ride" joke of a movie has a very good selection of late-60's/early 70's "choppers". The motorcycles alone are worth the watch. The plot? What plot? The acting? Stiff. Forced. Poor. The only reason I'm giving it a "six" is the tits motorcycles used in the movie. The fake "kick-starting" them is very lame, though. Why can't they ever find actors/extras that actually LOOK like "bikers"? I got "recruited" to be a "biker extra" in the mega-flop comedy "Dutch Treat" circa 1987. I rode my own Harley, wore my own clothes and was actually the only one drinking beer that I had snuck in the "biker bar" scene: "No drinking on the set!" I was told but I snuck it in and threw in some ad-libbing which they used! "The Hard Ride"? Poor movie, great motorcycles. Where are those bikes today?! Some "cheap biker movies" are actually very entertaining when you consider how poor the acting is. However, there's no excuse for plot lines so thin as to be almost nonexistent.

"The Hard Ride" is a decent film---not especially good but they people who made it tried to make a competent movie and it is watchable. However, for folks who LIKE sleazy biker pics, this one will be a HUGE disappointment! Had they infused it with the typical crap you'd find in films like "Satan's Sadists" or "Werewolves on Wheels", it would have been worse but a lot more fun.The film is about an ex-G.I. (Robert Fuller) who has come to a desert town to take possession of his dead buddy's chopper nicknamed 'Baby'. Unfortunately, all kids of nasty folks want the bike and Fuller isn't about to just give it to these jerks. However, this is only part of the film--much of it consists of Fuller and a lady driving around cross country looking for 'Big Red' as well as making out. While all this COULD have been great sleazy fun, it's all played very straight and is non-exploitation all the way. A somewhat dull time-passer and that's about it.

If you're looking for something a little different from the typical late '60s/early '70s AIP biker flick, then ignore any negatory comments about this film and track yourself down a copy. (As of April 2006 Sony/MGM has yet to release it onto DVD; it was only available about 10 years back on VHS from the now-defunct Orion, who then had the rights to the AIP library, which MGM then subsequently picked up.) Yes, this film is not so heavy on the exploitation elements as others of the genre (e.g. "Satan's Sadists", which I found to be abysmally dull and typical of the inept hackwork of the 'great' Al Adamson - the title's the best thing about that film). Not that it's lacking in violence, sex, drugs and general sleaziness (there's even some brief topless nudity); it's just that this film also has some other things on its mind - LIKE TELLING A STORY.Gravelly-voiced Robert Fuller (soon-to-be of 'Emergency!' fame) stars as a returning Vietnam vet who, in accordance with a dying buddy's wishes, takes under his care his dead friend's chopper, named 'Baby'. And what a hog! This is the kind of motorcycle that I used to fantasize about when I was six years old, with high handlebars, big pipes, long forks and a throaty engine. VRROOOOM! Fuller also hooks up (not in the literal sense, mind you - at least, not initially) with his dead pal's old lady, one Sheryl, played by genre vet Sherry Bain, who is far more plausibly cast in the role than, say, Jocelyn Lane in "Hell's Belles". (Don't get me wrong: I LOVE Jocelyn Lane - she is an uber-fox of the highest degree, but she is nowhere near as believable as a 'motorcycle mama' as Bain is.) Ms. Bain, with her tousled mane of real red hair and curvy but not over-endowed body, is beautiful, but not TOO beautiful for the role, with hints of wear and tear, some frazzled edges, but still radiating a healthy sexiness, albeit one with more than a hint of sadness and cynicism underlying it.The film also deals with some interesting racial angles, too, that - to my knowledge, anyway - were pretty atypical for a genre picture like this one, and deals with them in an interesting fashion, if perhaps a tad bit too cursorily. For example, Fuller's dead pal was black, and thus Sheryl, a white woman, was crossing the color line in her relationship with him. Later, encountering another black biker who makes an impertinent assumption in coming onto her, she is prompted to respond, "I wasn't into him because he was black!" Also, the film's MacGuffin (of a sort - he's the guy Fuller and Bain spend most of the running time looking for), a guy who goes by the sobriquet Big Red, is a Native American (tribe not specified) - just another interesting detail in film whose genre is all too often portrayed as being as lily white as many eastern prep schools.As for the exploitation angles, like I said, there's plenty of substance abuse, some skinnydipping, a scene in a whorehouse (with the aforementioned nudity - hey, you could get away with more in the early '70s with a 'GP' rating) and some fairly brutal and well-directed fight sequences (much better than just about any from other films in this genre and period). Plus lots and lotsa hogs.

The Hard Ride tries to be a message movie, as Robert Fuller (soon to be Dr Kelly Brackett on TV's 'Emergency!') comes home from 'Nam to reclaim his dead buddy's chopper, Baby. Complications ensue as the local chapter of Hell's Bellyachers don't take too kindly to a straight dude muscling in on the action. This is no Satan's Sadists, heck it's not even Hell's Angel on Wheels, so aside from a few chase scenes and a whiff of miscegenation there's not much fun to be had here.