The Black Angels (1970)

Directed by: Laurence Merrick
Starring: Des Roberts, John King III, John Donovan

---

Big Jim [After Getting Pissed On]: This time I'm gonna kill you Frenchy, you filthy, no-good, egg-suckin', finger-lickin, snot-pickin', scuzzy-faced rat!

---

The Black Angels was described to me as "the Biker movie where the bikers have a pet lion and there's a song about eating cigarettes." If you're like me, that's more than enough to peak your interest. But since we're all here, I'll go ahead and expand on that summary. In Black Angels, the white biker gang - led by Chainer (Des Roberts) - and the black biker gang - led by Knifer (Robert Johnson) - have an uneasy alliance, marred by the occassional outburst of violence. Both gangs get hassled by the Black Angels... the local cops, led by Lt. Harper. Harper wants both gangs gone, and he's come up with a scheme to trick the gangs into wiping each other out.

Black Angels has all the elements of a standard 70's biker flick: the required biker characters - including a biker with an eye-patch, a 'cooky' biker, a loser biker who everyone else picks on, and a brooding #2 biker who questions the leader's authority; a bar fight with the locals - complete with horrifically shitty fighting; a complete disregard for women; the biker hang-out/commune decorated with random bales of hay; and the angsty speeches about how things would be so much better if The Man would just let everyone be. But there's enough little things about this movie that make it one of the more enjoyable entries in the genre.

For instance, take this film's 'cooky' biker, Frenchy. He spends the entire film wearing acid-washed jeans and a blue silk pirate's shirt under his denim vest... he says really smart-ass stuff to the cops like "We - all of us - simply relish these little visits"... he hides in trees and pisses on other bikers... plus he doesn't even ride a bike... he's got a canopy-covered moped-looking something or other. Compare that to the Smiley, the nutty biker in Angels From Hell... all he's got is a goofy laugh and some cool glasses. There's just no comparison.

Then there's the Johnny Reb character - a redneck biker from Dallas played by Psycho From Texas's John King III. Reb shows up about halfway through the film, on the run for beating the hell out of his girlfriend - Chainer welcomes him into the gang pretty quickly ("Any rat that'd work his old lady over with a ball bat can't be all bad"), but Frenchy knows there's something fishy. One of the film's best sequences comes when Reb starts to describe Knifer's gang as "those people," and Chainer shuts him down real quick: "Hey! Any beef we have with Knifer has to do with territory - not color! This country... a white man can't have a decent fight with a black man without it being racial." The movie's filled with tons of great stuff like this... did I mention that in the film's final battle sequence, a racist nypho totally stabs some guy in the back with a pitchfork?

Ok... if you're sold by this point, head on over to Trash Palace and pick up a copy of The Black Angels (or dozens of other biker flicks). But, in the off chance you still need a bit more convincing, as a Dumb Distraction Internet-Exclusive, here's the 'song about cigarettes.' It's called, appropriately enough, Cigarettes, and it's written, composed and sung by Smokey Roberds:

I've been known to eat my cigarettes
And I've swallowed them with no regrets
There's a bitter taste at first, one forgets.
And it doesn't hurt a bit to eat your cigarettes.

You get high anyway.
Won't you flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

They say smokin' causes lung disease.
If you do it very long it'll have you on your knees.
But there's more to the law than the government sees,
And you can have a good time if you please.

Get so higggggggggggghhhhhhhh anyway.
Won't you flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

There's another verse, but I forget.
I've been known to win and lose a bet.
And I can swim a quarter-mile, and I'd get wet,
And it doesn't hurt a bit to eat your cigarettes.

You get high anyway.
Won't you flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

- Micah