Directed By: Lee Madden
Starring: Don Stroud, Luke Askew, Larry Bishop
Tag line: "HATE WAS THE CHAIN THAT LINKED THEM TOGETHER! God Help the One Who Broke It!"
Trivia: A soundtrack recording was released in 1970 on American International records featuring music composed and sung by Randy Sparks
Angel Unchained has one hell of a pre-title sequence:
The Nomads chapter of the Exiles Motorcycle Club is hanging out at an amusement park, enjoying the kiddie rides. Their fun is interrupted when a rival gang shows up, and within moments there's an all-out brawl. The melee spreads throughout the park; a few guys are fighting on the rollercoaster while one biker chases another on the merry-go-round. The cops eventually turn up, causing everyone to scatter, but it’s a lot of fun while it lasts!
This little scrap proves to be the final straw for Angel (Don Stroud), the vice-president of the Nomads. After talking things over with club president (and his best friend) Pilot (Larry Bishop), Angel resigns and sets out on his own.
Not long after, he helps a couple of hippies who are being harassed by a bigoted gas station attendant, and to show their gratitude, the two hippies - one of whom is named Merilee (Tyne Daly) - take Angel back to their commune, where he’s invited to stay as long as he likes by Jonathan (Luke Askew), their leader
Unfortunately, the locals just won’t leave the hippies alone, and attack the commune. While trying to intercede, Angel stabs one of the attackers with a pitchfork. In a fit of anger, the locals then give Jonathan and his followers until the end of the week to clear out, or face the consequences.
To keep his commune together, Jonathan asks Angel to talk to his old biker gang, in the hopes they’ll teach his group how to defend themselves and maybe even stick around long enough to scare away the locals. Reluctant to do so, Angel nonetheless rides off and finds Pilot and the others, who agree to accompany him back to the commune. But as Angel feared, the bikers take over the place, and the hippies begin to wonder if there will be anything left of their beloved home when the fighting starts.
A 1970 biker flick directed by Lee Madden, Angel Unchained is equal parts The Wild Angels and The Magnificent Seven, with a dash of Easy Rider thrown in for good measure. At first glance, this may seem like an odd combination, but Madden and the film’s writer Jeffrey Alan Fiskin manage to make it work. They even throw a little humor into the mix; soon after they arrive at the commune, a few of the bikers, including Magician (T. Max Graham) and Shotgun (Bill McKinney), get their hands on some “special” cookies made by the “Injun” (Pedro Regas), an aging Native American who manufactures his own hallucinogenic drugs. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say the Injun’s concoction affects the bikers in a very... unusual way (we’re treated to a bizarre - but oh so funny - fantasy sequence).
That said, Angel Unchained is at its best when the action kicks up a notch, and the final showdown between the locals (who drive dune buggies, of all things) and the hippies / bikers is packed with plenty of drama and excitement.
Angel Unchained certainly isn’t perfect; it drags a bit at times (especially early on, before Pilot and the Nomads invade the commune); and the relationship that develops between the bikers and the hippies isn’t explored as well as it could be (Pilot and company go from mocking their hosts one minute to defending them the next, and we’re never quite sure why). But thanks to a handful of well-staged action scenes and a memorable cameo by Aldo Ray (as a laid-back sheriff), Angel Unchained is, at the very least, an entertaining watch.
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