The first big juvenile delinquent film and the first motorcycle gang film. It’s not that great, but it is iconic out the ass and it features one of Marlon Brando’s signature performances as a sensitive brute. Two gangs of motorcycle-riding creeps—Brando’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Lee Marvin’s The Beetles—vroom through small towns and raise hell until the police kick them out. They eventually stick around for awhile in a sleepy little burg called Wrightsville, home of the wimpiest sheriff (Robert Keith) in the history of movies, as well as his sweet-faced and sad-eyed daughter (Mary Murphy) who longs to get out. Brando has a thing for the girl, but he doesn’t know how to express it. He doesn’t know how to express much of any emotion. All of the other guys in the gang are a bunch of nitwits who just want to hoot and holler and smash shop windows, but Brando’s trying to find himself. And that requires a lot of brooding.
Based on the short story The Cyclists by Frank Rooney, which was drawn from the Hollister Riot over the 4th of July weekend of 1947 in Hollister, California. It was a big motorcycle rally that attracted so many bikers that the town was overrun. According to most accounts today, the majority of the bikers were peaceful and only a small number caused any trouble, but the media used staged photos and sensational articles to report it as a veritable orgy of violence and crime.