ANGEL UNCHAINED (1970) Blu-ray
Director: Lee Madden
Scorpion Releasing

The great Don Stroud has his turn as the lead in an American International Pictures (AIP) motorcycle movie with ANGEL UNCHAINED, now available on Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing.

Shot on location in Arizona, ANGEL UNCHAINED features Don Stroud (DEATH WEEKEND) as Angel, a biker who, after they get into a brawl at an amusement park, leaves his gang behind to ride across the country. He joins a hippie commune that's having trouble with the local white trash cowboy-hat-wearing rednecks who don't take kindly to longhairs, especially their hateful leader Tom (Jordan Rhodes, MR. MAJESTYK). There, he quickly falls in love with flower child Merilee (future "Cagney & Lacey" and "Judging Amy" star Tyne Daly) and easily adapts to their ways of working in the fields all day to keep food (vegetables) on the table. The rednecks not only hate the hippies, but they frequently trash their land by ripping it up with their dune buggies! The leader of the commune (Luke Askew, PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID) asks Angel to recruit his old biker "club" to stay on the commune for a few days and protect them from the outer threats they've been plagued with. And in exchange, all the beer they can drink, which if we learned anything from The Rolling Stones and the Hell's Angels at Altamont, can end in disastrous results.

The uncouth gang is lead by VP Pilot (Larry Bishop — the son of Rat-Packer Joey Bishop — who played similar roles in several other biker films). The bikers do their best to protect the hard-working peaceful folks, but the lack of red meat and their penchant for "funny" chocolate chip cookies baked by an old Indian medicine man (Pedro Regas, THE MADMEN OF MANDORAS) cause them to get a bit rowdy. Other members of the motorcycle club brought in to protect the pacifists include Magician (T. Max Graham, aka Neil Moran, ERASERHEAD) a hefty, caped and top-hat-wearing witch doctor-type who conceals uppers and downers in the lining of his cape, and Shotgun (Bill McKinney, DELIVERANCE) a savage beer-guzzling brute who takes it upon himself to carve out a tattoo from his mama (Jean Marie Ingels, THE SINGLE GIRLS) that beared the name of her ex (and Shotgun’s rival) Angel. Of course, any film with bikers against rednecks on dune buggies has to have an exciting climax, and this AIP cheapie certainly does.

Relatively non exploitive and quite harmless (it got a “GP” rating — now “PG-13” according to the Blu-ray's packaging — and often played on a double bill with CRY OF THE BANSHEE starring Vincent Price), ANGEL UNCHAINED is enjoyable drive-in fodder and like many biker flicks, employs elements from EASY RIDER (peace communes, misunderstood youth, etc.), with an underlying plot lifted from THE SEVENTH SAMURAI, and it’s also somewhat reminiscent of the previous year’s RUN, ANGEL, RUN! which featured William Smith as a biker who deserts his gang in order to sell an expose to a major magazine. Like a lot of the cycle movies from the later 1960s and early 1970s, there’s a rape implied, which almost feels like an obligatory catalyst in making the rednecks even more despicable. Aldo Ray (RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP) is wasted in a small but humorous sheriff bit that has him as a calm spectator to an outdoor brawl between bikers and rednecks. Stroud was more effective in his other AlP film of 1970, Roger Corman's BLOODY MAMA, but he’s perfectly cast here, with extra bikers being played by “The Dirty Dozen” club of Arizona. Director Madden also helmed the more interesting HELL'S ANGELS '69 the year before, as well as the underappreciated 1973 horror opus THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED.

With the biker genre being criminally underrepresented on the Blu-ray format, Scorpion Releasing has licensed ANGEL UNCHAINED from MGM for what can be deemed a special edition. The film has been presented in 1080p HD in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, with colors being accurate and very nicely saturated, and fine detail is quite good especially in the film's close-ups. There are instances of film dirt and debris (especially during the film’s pre-credit sequence), but this is never anything too obtrusive and only adds to the transfer’s pleasing organic aesthetics which offer the right amount of filmic grain. A DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is provided, which generally sounds fine and offers perfectly clear dialogue. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

Scorpion Releasing has furnished the disc with two excellent new interviews with stars from the film. Actor Larry Bishop (15:40) starts off by saying how he got a multi-picture deal with AIP (after appearing in WILD IN THE STREETS) since Sam Arkoff thought his eyes looked great on the big screen. Bishop (who basically looks the same today as he did in the movie) talks about when he first rode a cycle at a very young age, his approach to acting in the film and what AIP productions were like, his hitting it off with Madden, that he bonded with Stroud (who recommended him to Universal), his bit with Aldo Ray (one of his favorite scenes) and the film’s stuntmen. Actor Jordan Rhodes (14:02) is interviewed from the rooftop of his Manhattan apartment (wearing a cowboy hat looks like the one he sports in the film). He discusses how he got into the business, and his bad guy role in ANGEL UNCHAINED, where he too got along great with director Madden. Rhodes also enjoyed making the film, as he talks about his co-stars and the stuntmen, and tells how he and Bishop were both competing for the affections of a young lady in the film. He mentions some of the other highlights in his long career (including working with Charles Bronson and John Wayne). The trailer for the film is included, as well as trailers for BUCKTOWN, BOBBY JO AND THE OUTLAW, and a trio of MGM-licensed AIP films coming to Blu-ray from Scorpion: CYCLE SAVAGES, ACT OF VENGEANCE (aka THE RAPE SQUAD) and CALIFORNIA DREAMING. (George R. Reis)

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