Movie Details
| Title: | The Pink Garter Gang | |
| Director: | Jimmy Murphy | |
| Year: | 1971 | |
| Genre: | Biker | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 01.24.08 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 01.24.08 | Weird Wednesday | Longtime readers may remember a Reel One screening a while back where a handfull of new aquisitions ran for 20 minutes for the Alamo guys to check out. It's nights like those that are some of my favorite Alamo experiences (unfortunately they're not always full films so I don't write about them here) and one of those first reels was this film! So I was pretty psyched to see this because I remember it being pretty good in its first 20 minutes. I was right about that. Splinter's gang is awesome. Rebel is great at being a slob, Bongos is great at being a dufus, but most of all Roach is great at being sort-of British and having several people comment on his funny talking. My favorite line from his mouth is his first, where he proclaims out of the blue that there's this new kind of weed that's a real trip. Great Stuff. Then this girl wearing a pink garter comes in and starts an upskirt-flashing catfight and even though she's not actually IN the pink garter gang, Mick Mehas somehow gets the band of elasticized silk and comes up with a crack idea of using tough chicks to pull off a series of robberies and heists totalling a million dollars. So most of the movie doesn't really have any bikes at all. This is maybe the least biker-ish biker movie I've ever seen. Luckily, Splinter's crew returns about two thirds of the way through to bring more of that fuck-all attitude that bikers love to give off like musk. What can I say... I really liked this one. Even though I got a little tired toward the end (which actually helped it a lot. there's a corvette vs. copcar chase that seemed to go on for 90 minutes thanks to my heavying eyelids. It was hilarious), I still loved it and the very very end was indeed classic. The thing with this movie, as discussed in the lobby afterward, was that there were like 8 different subplots going on that were never really explained at all. For this kind of movie - especially considering the level of production and acting going on - I was really surprised by the layering and subtlety of the plot. Now, I say subtlety but it's a weird kind of drive-in subtle that's totally in your face but fails so completely at conveying information that it ends up being real sly. I loved when Mehas pointed to what looked like a mugshot of some lady and said "what about that lady, won't she be mad?" like we're supposed to connect the dots to the two other times we've seen her in the entire movie. She doesn't have a speaking role, she doesn't even have a name, yet she ends up being crucial to understanding the end of the movie. Classic. And oh the acting. Pretty much everything about the last 3 minutes of this movie is so... I mean I really don't want to say "great" because it's not, but... great! And it actually surprised me with the credits coming up because they had set something up so completely then didn't pay it off, but then they did. and it was great. Other moments I loved: -Mehas getting into the big-haired blonde's car and her walking out the store, seeing him, throwing her hands in the air and saying "why not!!?!?" -The whole conversation between Mehas and his dad at the beginning. His dad was great! I wish I could remember every word out of his mouth. -Keith Carradine filling out a tiny role as a beach-bum Fresca freeloader. -Breakfast Club principal Paul Gleason as an inept cop with an awesome black partner who doesn't like paying for coffee or getting out of restaraunt booths in conventional ways. -The uncomfortable moment after the main tough chick tells Mehas that the guy deserved the rough treatment because he was a guy and continued to stare at him as he drove on in awkward maleness. -The fact that Mehas' grand scheme to get money for his girls' pregnancy is to join a biker gang. -The fact that he's a member of said gang for all of 45 seconds before he quits. -The fact that his girl never really looks pregnant over the months that his gang is pulling all these jobs. -I'm sure there are more but like I said, I got tired. Incidentally, this is my 100th Weird Wednesday! It's odd how it just so happens that I've seen 50 Terror Thursdays. Do I love Weird Wednesday twice as much? hmmm. Anyway, on this centennial engagement let me just say that this series has drastically changed how I watch and what I watch for in movies, generally for the better. It's been easily my favorite part of the week for a while now and... I guess I'll say more about it after my next hundred! |
