1994 - MOTORCYCLE GANG, my first film in the Rebel Highway series.

Time to give the Rebel Highway series a look.  This series was an attempt to recreate the exploitation films of the 1950's and early 1960's by giving directors a small budget and allowing them to have control over their films.  Macho director John Milius is up with this pagan to the motorcycle films that AIP cranked out for a while.

The film is unsurprisingly called Motorcycle Gang.  TV veteran Gerald McRaney plays a father who is traveling to California with his hot to trot daughter played by Carla Gugino (a 22 year old actress attempting to pass for a teenager) and his cheating wife.  The family gets involved with a motorcycle gang of killers who kidnap the daughter.  The film deals with the father and mother attempting to get their daughter back.  However all is not what it seems, the father has a secret violent past unbeknownst to the motorcycle gang.   Let the action commence.

 

This would seems like a film right up John Milius's alley but he directs the film in an extremely pedestrian manner.  The actors at times are sleepwalking through their cliched characters and the whole thing suffers from a lack of tension.  The action scenes are somewhat on the lame side as well.

 

This is not a particularly good start for the first film I'm viewing in the series, it's kind of a disappointment.  The running time is 84 minutes.  It was written by Laurie McQuillan and Kent Anderson.

1973 - DILLINGER, another shot at the famous 30's gangster

Macho director/writer John Milius persuaded American International Pictures to let him direct his script on the life of gangster John Dillinger. AIP President Samuel Arkoff agreed and result was Milius's first film.

The film has a very good cast, Warren Oats, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips, Cloris Leachman, Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Dreyfuss.  Dillinger was filmed in Oklahoma but sort of has that AIP low budget look to it. 

Milius had commented that his version of the John Dillinger story more closely followed the facts of his life.  But this was probably typical hyperbole by the overly macho director.

 

The film is like an odd mixture of a John Ford film celebrating traditional values of American life and a gangster film with lots of shooting.  Milius, a gun nut seems to enjoy staging scenes of houses and people getting riddled with machine gun fire.

In the end the film is just as big a fantasy as about every other gangster film.

Running time, 107 minutes.  

1984 - RED DAWN on Blu Ray

I saw this film when it was first released in 1984.  At the time I thought it was the stupidest film I had seen in a while.  Re watching the film yesterday I thought it played a little better.  It's still kind of a stupid film.

The invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union is told from the perspective of a group of high school students who become a resistance movement in their town.  There's lots of shooting and blowing up of stuff and lots and lots of macho posturing.

The director and co-writer was right wing nut job John Milius.  This film was definitely has cup of tea.  He gets to fill the fantasy the every right winger has about the government capitulating to the Commies.  His approach was to focus on a select group of people probably saved the film having giant budget overruns since he didn't have to stage major battle scenes with hundreds of extras.

The blu ray presentation is kind of poor with lots of grain in certain scenes particularly the scenes filmed at night.

114 minutes.

1975 - THE WIND AND THE LION, is sort of a low rent El Cid or Lawrence of Arabia

Writer/director and macho man of the Hollywood 70's film crowd that includes Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas, tried his hand at an old fashioned adventure film.

The Wind and the Lion is the story of an American woman and her two children who are abducted by Arab bandits.  Looking for an issue to hang his presidential campaign on, Theodore Roosevelt uses the kidnapping to influence public opinion.

The film has action and scenery.  Milius sticks enough humor in it just in case anyone thinks all this war mongering is to be taken seriously which it isnt.  However I kind of suspect deep down John Milius takes all this very seriously. 
 

As far as the acting goes, Sean Connery brings his usual strong presence to the role of the Arab chief.  Brian Keith plays Theodore Roosevelt as a blustering type A personality that everyone seems to think he was.  Candice Bergen is her usual blond self.

In interviews,  Milius comes off as a big blustering right wing loud mouth more full of hot air then actual opinions.  The Wind and the Lion is the same thing a big epic wanna be David Lean film full of hot air.  The film is like John Milius.

119 minutes.