Shiny Leather in the Dark: The Wild One

"What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?" says dancing party girl Mildred to the moody, leather-clad biker boy memorably played by a young Marlon Brando. His famous answer? "Whaddya got?"

Such an insouciant toss-off may seem tame by today’s standards, but in director Laslo Benedek’s 1953 The Wild One (produced by Stanley Kramer), a movie I recently rewatched, that type of reckless rebellion (without a cause) pre-Elvis, was a big deal. A very big deal. Indeed, the entire picture had enormous impact. The movie, based on a Harper’s Magazine story that itself was loosely based on a real-life incident involving a gang of bikers invading a small California town on a Fourth of July weekend, was viewed as so incendiary that the picture was banned in Great Britain until 1968. (Think, how today's mainstream news easily discussed the murder of San Francisco chapter Hell Angels president Mark "Papa" Guardado).

Given how forced some parts of the movie feel, it seems rather silly, but I love this picture regardless -- from its slinky Leith Stevens score, to its dual versions of the alpha male black leather bad boy -- a stoic Brando and a boisterous Lee Marvin -- two cinematic geniuses stomping out the weaklings and marking their territory with inspired appetites (for destruction).

Concerned citizens were frightened not only of its unresolved message but of its reckless, glamorous appeal. Long before the 1960s made biker movies a standard and sometimes silly, sometimes superb subgenre of counterculture cinema, The Wild One -- with its wild hogs, swingin’ jazz score, "Go, Daddy-o" slang and slick black leather style (encased in the fuller body of a gorgeous, somewhat camp Brando, whose look remains timeless) -- was the biker movie. A precursor to the social upheavals that would occur a decade later in the tumultuous 1960s, The Wild One as occasionally goof-ball and somewhat preachy as it plays today, was a blast in the face to regular "square" society, revealing that the kids were not alright. Particularly the older (and boy do they look older), more experienced "kids" -- those scary, wild boys of the road roaring into your sleepy little town on two big powerful wheels. (Can you imagine that tall glass of menace Marvin plopping your little teenage daughter on the back of his hog? Jesus. Why didn't he roar into my town?)

In The Wild One, that town is the milquetoasty Wrightsville, in which (to refresh your memory) Johnny Strabler (Brando), gang leader of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (so on the nose and so great...), decides to raise some hell after his gang steals a trophy from the motorcycle competition it was kicked out of. The townspeople are terrified (and, of course, titillated -- especially pretty Kathie Bleeker, played by Mary Murphy) and even the sheriff is unable to contain the problems. The situation escalates when a rival gang (The Beatles -- reportedly, possibly, though never proven, inspiring a name for that other famous group) led by Chino (a brilliant Marvin -- who comes off as the real deal here, laughing face, live-wire energy, striped shirt, Timothy Carey as "Chino's Boy" and all) drops into town, causing a fight with Johnny and his crew. Leather, rage, animalistic sexual urges -- "shiny, shiny, boots of leather, whiplash girl child in the dark..." -- oh, if only the movie could have gone that far.

And yet, it almost does go that far -- subverted underneath its cautionary tale simmered an infectious blast of souped up romanticism and erotic sado-masochism. Face it: these filmmakers knew their picture was a turn-on. The thugged-up gang may clash with the establishment, but who really wants the boring, scared squares to win? Brando, all disaffected bad-boy sexiness, does border on the unlikable side (though he is sympathetic) but the cops aren’t anyone we’d really side with either; in fact, the town’s sheriff is given such little respect, we wonder if the picture is criticizing the watered down suburban man (where's one-armed bad ass Bad Day at Black Rock's Spencer Tracy when you need him?).

So … who’s the "hero" here? Well, obviously Brando and Marvin are stealing the show (and many a viewer’s heart), they are the heroes -- they are the brutal, beautiful manifestation of all that specific, suburban unrest so many young people felt at the time. They're also visions of grubby glamour -- compelling kids to find kicks, danger, the open road and some hot leather jackets before such gear became like today's tattoos -- boring symbols of "rebellion." (You have to know what to wear to the revolution). As the movie proclaimed: "After a while you got to have fun. And if someone gets hurt -- that's just tough!" Or rather, tuff.

Comments

[Jeremy]

Excellent review, I also enjoy this film but can't help but laugh at what was once considered taboo. I fell like the end where they are chasing Brando around gets kind of lost but there is an innocence about this film that makes me appreciate its "silly" moments just that much more.

[Kevyn Knox]

Great review. I actually have never seen this movie (I know, a goddamned shame - but everyone's gotta have a few gaps) but it has always been right there, just out of reach, always replaced by some other film to watch. I suppose eventually I must stop watching the rest and take the time to watch this one. Your piece on the matter has given me that little extra stretch, just when I needed it most. So much so that I just ordered the DVD on Amazon (finalized my order mere seconds ago).

Thanx Kim, and keep up the insightful reporting from the proverbial front.

[Funk 49]

Did James Mason ever do a biker movie with Pat Boone?

[Bill Hicks]

For what it's worth, I knew that picture of Brando-in-role from the first glimpse of the top edge of his cap, long before the whole picture loaded. It really is an iconic film, even though much of it is unwatchable. Your choice of the still wherein the sweet seducible soda-girl is admiring and almost touching that big hot sex machine between Brando's legs--that's subliminally pornographic. I love the look on Brando's face as he watches that pretty finger hovering. The Brits didn't know why they banned the movie, they just knew something or other was "disturbing."

[Michael R.]

I never the thought a line from the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" could be used as a header for this article.

[Kevyn Knox]

It is the very (censors-induced) innocence of this movie (even with its subliminal eroticism) that makes it work as well as it does. Today, the message, the eroticism, the sex, would be so blatant that it would not titillate as much as it must certainly have back in 1953. These were much more innocent days, but in many ways (and it shows in Brando and his cohorts) the erotic nature was (and still is when watching it) much more powerful a thing. A thing that could bust it all open.