At least three times, biker exploitation flicks documented pivotal moments in movie history. The Wild Ones (1953), with itsriveting performance by a young Marlon Brando, helped introduce a new way of acting, Method, which came to influence young actors for generations afterwards. The movie catered to the newly emerging teenage market that developed after WWII and would come to dominate the Hollywood audience to the present day. “What are you rebelling against?” “Whadda ya got?” became a rallying cry for the counterculture globally demonstrating that the supposedly Silent Decade of the 1950s was a decade of revolution and unrest like the 1960s after it.
Easy Rider (1969) highlighted that New Hollywood, the counterculture, and the rock music soundtrack were all immensely profitable if packaged correctly and distributed to the right target audience. For a brief period until the release of Jaws(1975), Hollywood experienced a revolution in the movie industry that explored complex, controversial, and maturethemes in mainstream pictures. Wild Hogs (2007) nailed home that this era of exploration was long over and that a creatively bankrupt Hollywood would continue to be rewarded by a braindead and passive audience. Wild Hogs grossed over 250 million dollars globally. The motorcycle, a symbol of danger and freedom, was now a wheelchair for middle-aged Boomers questioning their choices in life. The Hell’s Angels sued the makers of the movie for infringement, but they should have suedfor libel. The case was voluntarily dismissed.
The Wild Ones and Easy Rider have been stored away in the Criterion closet and Wild Hogs festers on Rotten Tomatoes, but for biker exploitation movies the real arbiters of taste are Quentin Tarantino and Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Tarantino included The Savage Seven (1968) in his first film festival thereby canonizing the film as a major landmark in the exploitation genre as a form of art. Myster Science Theater3000 had a field day with Wild Rebels (1967) and made that film a classic in the so-bad-it’s-good category. Tarantino or MST3K? Who captures the true spirit of the biker exploitation film and its merits? Lou is a MST3K guy. What say you?
Browsing at Vinyl Vogue, Lou came across the soundtrack toThe Savage Seven. The presence of Cream in the track listing caught his attention. Eric Clapton and Martin Sharp wrote “Anyone for Tennis” as the theme song for the movie, which seems a strange choice indeed. The song seems decidedly British. It was Clapton and Sharp’s second collaboration, the first being the masterful “Tales of Brave Ulysses”, which to Lou’s ears is the greatest psych song ever put on wax. If Cream seems out of place on the soundtrack, Iron Butterfly feels right at home. The Butterfly are exploitation rock at its finest. “Iron Butterfly Theme” and “Unconscious Power” with its fuzz and stoned out acid trip musings seem like the most perfect expressions of shlock imaginable. Highly recommended listening.
There are two tracks by Barbara Kelly & the Morning Good, “Maria’s Theme” and “Ballad of the Savage Seven.” After some less than inspired digging around, Lou has come up empty with any information on this band. Sounds like a studio concoction to Lou. Most of the rest of the tracks are by another studio pro, Jerry Styner. Styner churned out scores of scores forexploitation flicks and their ilk for decades. Styner first made his mark in beach movies of the 1960s like Beach Party (1963) and “It Only Hurts When I Cry” by Donna Loren in Beach Blanket Bingo. Besides The Savage Seven he scored Thunder Alley (1967), The Devil’s 8 (1969), The Cycle Savages (1969), and Cycle Psycho (1973). Styner’s collaboration with Guy Hemric, “Please Don’t Gamble With Love” for Ski Fever (1966) was nominated for a Grammy for Best Original Song. Ski Feveris considered the end of the beach party cycle of movies of the 1960s.
Like The Savage Seven film, the soundtrack is a wild, erratic ride. The genuinely great mixed with shlock and the genuinely obscure. That sounds like the recipe for a great exploitation movie and for those in love with this genre a great soundtrack as well.
Suggested Sites and Sounds:
Brando talks the talk for a generation: What are you rebelling against?
Wild Hogs crashes and burns: Wild Hogs Funny Crash Scene
The Savage Seven in all its glory: The Savage Seven (1968) [Selected for the First Quentin Tarantino Film Festival, 1997]
Wild Rebels on MST3K: MST3K S02E07 Wild Rebels
— Lou Waxman