The Savage Seven

OK biker flick which meanders for awhile before the inevitable "all hells breaks loose" finale. The novelty here is that most of the conflicts take place between bikers and Indians. The soundtrack contains a few songs from Iron Butterfly and Cream.

Adam Roarke and his gang ride into nowheresville, inhabited by Indians and a few white guys. Naturally the white guys, led by a large fellow played by Mel Berger, are keeping the red guys down, by having them work for low pay. Robert Walker Jr., as a blue-eyed Indian, is constantly getting beat up by everyone in the cast. Roarke sets his sights on Walker's sister, played by Joanna Frank. Of course, this leads to another beatdown of Walker. But Walker and Roarke suddenly become best buds, and take part in raiding Berger's store, supplying all the Indians with essentials like Frosted Flakes, Quaker Oats, and casino chips.

When a couple of the bikers are arrested, Berger cuts a deal with Roarke. He will decline charges against the bikers, if Roarke agrees to burn down the shacks where the Indians live. Roarke agrees, then decides to back out of the deal. He spends the night with Frank, which leads to another beatdown of Walker the next morning.

After one of the bikers is killed, Roarke thinks the Indians did it and orders his gang to destroy the village. This leads to the climax, with lots of motorcycle stunts, knifings, gunshots, people flying through the air, explosions, and one Indian having his dump in the outhouse interrupted.

Roarke is good as a creep with a slight trace of decency. Perennial biker Larry Bishop is one of the gang, and acts mentally impaired. At least, I think he was acting. Did I mention Walker gets beat up? My favorite character was the heretofore unknown Mel Berger, who is built like Tor Johnson and is always smiling, even when he is shooting someone. Laverne DeFazio makes her screen debut.

The film was produced by Dick Clark. Thankfully, none of the Indians say "How." But I suspect most of the critics said "Why?"

This movie is essentially about three different groups which come into conflict with each other coupled with alliances shifting back and forth. The first group consists of Native Americans who live in extreme poverty. The second group is led by a rich but extremely controlling person named "Mr. Fillmore" (Mel Berger) who exploits the Native Americans and keeps them in line by using hired thugs whenever anyone dares to complain. The third group is a motorcycle gang known simply as "MC California" who drift into the ramshackle town with the idea of fighting, drinking beer and carousing with some of the Native American females. Needless to say, Mr. Fillmore doesn't quite like all of the chaos and destruction by the motorcycle gang. On that same note, some of the Native Americans don't like the way they are treated either. But the tactics used by Mr. Fillmore are just as bad and as it turns out he now has a secret plan which will leave the Native Americans even more destitute. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie has plenty of action but very little character development. As a result several scenes lacked the necessary setup which made the movie appear to be too spontaneous and shallow. But that's just my opinion. Be that as it may, although it does have some good qualities here and there, I was generally disappointed overall and I have rated it according. Slightly below average.

Biker movies have never been my can of beer. Fortunately, THE SAVAGE SEVEN is better than what I discovered so far. What it has for a basic plotline makes up for the perfect setting ever devised in the genre, an Indian resort. Pretty hilarious at times, and wait for the finale where the whole place goes up in smoke! Listen for the film's signature line: "Hey man, you just barfed on my broad!". Penny Marshall makes a very early screen appearance here. If you like classic drive-in movies, then this will be a whole lot of fun.

Except for one bloke, who is unfortunate enough to resemble Gerard Depardieu, this is a gang of uncommonly cute bikies. But don't let their looks fool you. They just love their violence, and they're torn between fighting the fat ugly exploitative white man and his henchmen or fighting the spunky indigenous Johnnie with his collection of trendy shirts.

Of course, they just pick fights with anyone they meet for a while, but in the end they'll have to choose.

Savage Seven, The (1968)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely bizarre AIP flick about a group of Indians, led by Johnnie (Robert Walker, Jr.) who are tired of their poor lives where they're pushed around on their reservation by a greedy white man. Soon a gang of bikers show up and the two sides clash, especially Johnnie and Stud (Adam Rourke) and it's all going to end in a battle. This is a very bizarre movie as it seems three or four screenplays were just mixed together and AIP quickly filmed them without trying to put anything into order. There are times when you think the bikers are wanting to help the Indians but then we're back to fighting only to flip flop a couple more times. The entire movie constantly left me with a WTF look on my face as nothing ever made too much sense or really added up in the end. You've got your typical white bad guys who are stealing money from the Indians. You have the Indians wanting to fight back on what is basically your land. Then you have the bikers show up who are probably here so AIP could exploit the biker genre. The film was apparently selected by Quentin Tarantino during one of his film festivals, which is a little interesting since there are much better biker flicks out there from this era. There's really not too much violence, no profanity and no nudity so the "exploitation" market is pretty low. What the film does have are a few long fights that seems to keep going and going. That's certainly not a bad thing as the fights are pretty outrageous with bats, chains and various other objects being used. Walker isn't too bad in his role but the screenplay doesn't leave him too much to do. The same can be said for Rourke who is also impressive for what he's given. Supporting players include Billy Green Bush, John "Bud" Cardos, Larry Bishop and Joanna Frank. Most of the time these biker flicks are at least mildly entertaining but this one here left me bored for long stretch of periods and way too many times. There's some cult-ish items here but just not enough to make this worth sitting through when there are so many better films out there.