At The Movies with Bryan, the Wannabe Filmmaker

  When The Wild Angels came out in 1966 it was a huge box office hit and inspired a whole new subgenre of outlaw biker movies.   It was also a source of inspiration for Easy Rider (which also starred Peter Fonda). It was fairly controversial when it came out, but in hindsight it comes off as rather silly.   While watching the movie, I couldn’t help but to think of the Beach Party series (also produced by American International Pictures) in the mid 60s.   The main antagonists in the Beach Party movies (with the exception of Muscle Beach Party) were a biker’s gang, The Rat Pack, led by the dopey Eric Von Zipper.  Zipper often came up with ridiculous schemes to “get those no good surfers” off of his beach, which always ended in total failure.   In The Wild Angels, the outlaw biker gang, The Angels, are led by Heavenly Blues (Peter Fonda), who, despite his “too cool for school demeanor” manages to be an even more incompetent leader than Eric Von Zipper.   Sure, Zipper’s schemes always fai

In its initial release Three O’ Clock High was a box office bomb.   It was panned heavily by the critics and had the misfortune of being lost in the shuffle – the movie market was heavily saturated with teen movies at this time. It was a good year for movies like Can’t Buy Me Love and Dirty Dancing, but Three O’ Clock slipped through the masses completely unnoticed.   It’s also hard to fault the movie critics for their hostile reviews – on the surface Three O’ Clock High is your standard 80s teen comedy. It shares the same tropes of most teen comedies:   the socially awkward protagonist; the uncompromising bully; the “cute” female best friend; the popular girl who the protagonist obsesses over; and a “believe in yourself” message.   Yet, on closer inspection Three O’ Clock High is a more interesting movie than most critics gave it credit it for.   The plot is fairly straightforward – Jerry Mitchell, our protagonist, is given the assignment of interviewing the new kid, Buddy Revell.