The Savage Seven

source: The Savage Seven

Moviecut—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?"

I actually tried to suspend belief and imagine that blue eyed Robert Walker Jr, (Johnnie) Max Julien (Grey Wolf) and Joanna Frank (Marcia) were actually Native Americans. In the early part of the movie after the bikers, led by handsome Adam Roarke (Kisum), rolled into the shanty town Joanna's character actually looked like a Native American especially in the darker bar scenes, however, once the filming moved in to the sunlight it was obvious that the beautiful lady was most likely a descendant of the Squirrel Hill Tribe. As far as the movie's plot goes the shanty town is ruled by (Mr. Fillmore) Mel Berger who works the Native Americans to the bone and takes all of their money at the company store. The film spends two much time flipping between the Bikers and Native Americans fighting each other or partying together while the evil Fillmore plots against them both. Then there is the subplot of a romance between Marcia and Kisum but there are two many points of dispute between the two and I couldn't help but think it would be better for each if they just moved on without each other. Somehow, I did make it to the end but just didn't care anymore with all the fighting and especially the campy brain dead dialog between the bikers that really got old. I'm going to be charitable and give the the film three stars because Joanna did give her character Marcia a real calm and mellow presence making Marcia by far the most believable in a fine bit of acting among a lot of bad acting. László Kovács also did his usual great Cinematography and oh yea Penny Marshall in her first role was young and cute. I am happy that things have changed where Native American's principally play the parts of Native American's in the movies and not guys with baby blue eyes. Not that there is anything wrong with the baby blues but you know what I mean. If you want to watch a fun bikersploitation flick check out "Angels Hard as They Come" and skip The Savage Seven IMHO.

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.

In fact I would have gave it higher a rating but for the genre '8' will do. If you've'e seen some truly awful murdersickle gang movies and you want to be entertained and amused this is the one for you. Not that it has a morally life changing ending. In fact the ending is a little sad, with the bikers hired to do away with the Reservation only to find out the rednecks who hired them are working both ends against the middle. To me the best tagline is when the redneck drops into a karate stance and yells, "hai, KARATE", and the biker scoops up a barstool and yells, "Hai, CHAIR!!" and clobbers the redneck... Put the kiddies to bed, whip out some popcorn, and set back to be entertained...

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.

This starts out to be one of the best biker films (which ain't saying much, since most are pretty horrible), but like another good one (The Hard Ride), it falls on it's backside, in the end. Rourke and Walker both elevate this film to a much higher level than it would be, with lesser actors. There's lots of action and the Indian story is a nice change of pace. What kills the effect is what happens in the end of the film, and the following will contain spoilers: ..........Spoilers............. 1. Johnnie gets shot in the back, but somehow ends up with a belly wound. 2. Does he live? No one knows, because it's not indicated. 3. After Fat Jack is killed, what happens to Seely? He just disappears. Did he escape? Did he fall dead from some unseen wound? Did he plan on killing his boss, or was it unintentional? 4. Kisum leaves his mortally wounded future brother-in-law, as if he means nothing to him. What happened to the ambulances? Wouldn't someone have called from the Indian reservation once the killing started? 5. Kisum finds Marcia, and it's over....just like that. Boo! With a tighter, better thought-out ending, this one could have been a winner. It's still worth seeing for Walker and Rourke's performances, as well as the early performances of "Lavern" and Billy Green Bush, but if only they had had a decent ending for it.

**Some Spoilers** One of the many biker films coming out of the AIP studios during the 1960's and 70's "The Savage Seven" is also one of the most entertaining. The fact that were supposed to accept without question white blond and blue eyed Robert Walker Jr as American Indian Johnnie Blue Eyes is worth the price of admission alone. In the movie it's the bikers who at first are the bad guys in their rampaging through an Indian shanty town as they go on their way to bigger and better things. Like getting themselves stoned and drunk on pot and beer between raping the local Indian, young and old, women population. It's when the leader of the pack of bikers Kisum, Adam Roarke, tries to get a bit too friendly with local Indian Johnny Blue Eyes' sister Marcia, Joanna Frank, that the Indians, who at first avoided violence, started to get restless. We have a number of confrontations between Johnny and his Indian friends with Kisum's crew of drunk and rowdy motorcyclists that the local owner of the bar and convenience store Filmore, Mel Berger, tries to use to his advantage. Fillmore has been trying for some time to drive the pesky Indians off their land and turn it into a resort and shopping mall that would make him millions. Now with Kisum & Co. running amok and terrifying the Indians in town Fillmore plans to pay off Kisum to burn the Indians out of their homes at at the same time, by calling the state troopers, have him and his gang arrested for arson and murder. That's the proverbial knocking off two birds with one stone on Fillmore's part! ***SPOILERS*** It's when the bikers and Indians, seeing a common cause, become allied against Fillmore that he goes into overdrive in having a local Indian woman raped and murdered by his #1 henchman karate black belt Taggert, Charles Bail, and making it look like one of the bikers did it! When things still don't turn out the way he wanted them to, with the bikers and Indians not going for each other throats, Fillmore has Taggert & Co. murder Kisum's good friend Bull, Richard Anders, to get things, a war between the bikers & Indians, started. The stoned out of his skull, on pot uppers and downers, Bull is both murdered and then crucified by Fillmore's men having it made to look like the Indians did it; In revenge for the raped and murdered Indian woman. With both the bikers and Indians now at war with each other Fillmore & Co. just sits back, in being "innocent bystanders" in all the carnage, and wait for the inevitable results: The two sides wiping each other out with Fillmore and his boys, being non-combatants, picking up all the pieces. :The valuable Indian land! Since both the Bikers and Indians, in killing off each other, won't have any use for it anyway! That's until a battered and beaten Taggert, who had the truth beat out of him by Kisum, confessed to what he and his boss Fillmore did! It's now up to Kisum to get the truth out to both his bikers and Johnnie Blue Eyes' Indians to unite against their real enemy-Fillmore-before they both end up slaughtering each other!

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.