The Wild One (1953)

Truly Dreadful Film

The Worst Film Ever

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Here we have THE original biker cinema classic that predated "Easy Rider" by a good decade and a half. Marlon Brando, all swaggering cool, delivers an iconic performance as Johnny, leader of the B.R.M.C. (Black Rebels Motorcycle Club). Johnny and friends come to a small town to raise some Hell; he becomes quite taken with local girl Kathie Bleeker (Mary Murphy), and she with him.Although Johnny is no innocent, and does have a role to play in the events that get out of hand, it becomes clear that he's also not the Devil that hostile and intolerant citizens make him out to be."The Wild One" does firmly date itself in some ways. The dialogue is very much of the time, and the antics of these biker clubs are not as scuzzy as some people might like to see. This is not a biker film for those people who enjoy the exploitative low budget pictures that came out in the wake of "Easy Rider". After a while, it becomes clear that there's not that much of a story here, as a lot of mayhem and destruction takes up the running time. But then, this is just as much of a character study as it is a motorcycle movie.Our main character is something of an enigma. While ostensibly a rebel in outright defiance of every accepted societal norm, he's also a guy who's really not that sure of himself, a guy still in search of an identity. Scenes late in the film with Johnny and Kathie are the real standouts.The excellent cast also includes Robert Keith as Kathie's dad, a surprisingly laid back lawman who doesn't seem to be that cut out for his job, and who is willing to give our gang some amount of leeway. Lee Marvin steals his scenes as rival gang leader Chino. It's also fun to see people like Timothy Carey, Alvy Moore, Jerry Paris, and Bruno VeSota in small, uncredited roles.Nicely shot (by Hal Mohr) and scored (by Leith Stevens), "The Wild One" does merit a viewing for film buffs.Seven out of 10.

Otherwise a forgettable movie, totally transformed by Marlon Brando.Johnny (Marlon Brando) rides with his gang into a quiet little town inhabited by all right, but rather quaint, and parochial minded folks. On top of his gang, another group of bikers headed by Lee Marvin arrives in town just as a coincidence. All of them are not about behave as good citizens, and the two mixes up into an explosive chemistry. Johnny is kind of keeping good manners, but since he's the boss, he gets singled out to face the blunt end of the supposedly good fellas of town.This seemingly simple story gets high voltage boost by the presence of Marlon Brando. I was born after he was famous already, so I didn't rediscover Marlon Brando until recently. He was good in the God Father, but his performance from the '50s is simply off the chart. Brando was labeled a rebel, but when I see him, he's one of the most grounded person in Hollywood. His sensibility comes through in this movie's character, and you can't help but agreeing with the character Brando plays. Maybe that's the magic he had. A movie worth watching only because Marlon Brando is playing the lead. If he wasn't in it I doubt if the movie even worth 4/10. But this movie is superb, and deserves 8/10 because of Brando's performance.

A peaceable town is taken over by motorcycle rowdies.Despite the sometimes frat boy antics of gang members, the movie came across to audiences of the time as something of a 50's nightmare. For example, there's a small town taken over by motorcycle outlaws, a virginal girl (Murphy) surrounded by rowdies, a cop too meek to intervene, and a general breakdown of peace, quiet and conformity. In short, it's a challenge to the every day norms the famously inarticulate Johnny (Brando) is rebelling against. It's that sort of restlessness that takes the gang to the highway, and the excitement they seek. But it's also a nation recovering from the rigors of a big Depression and the disruptions of WWII. So the two are bound to clash. The movie may seem tame by today's graphic standards, but for the 1950's it was a barbarian assault against the decade's defining conventions. No wonder, the film was condemned in so many places.Truth be told, Brando doesn't act so much as he poses. Nonetheless, it's an iconic pose in cap and sunglasses that shot him to the forefront of the decade's celebrated rebels. For example, catch how delicately he positions the sunglasses or how he slouches silently by while others cavort. Still, the movie really comes alive when Lee Marvin (Chino) and his gang hit town. He's the loudmouth opposite of Johnny, looking to knock him off his regal pose, which he tries in a well-staged fistfight. Then there's Mary Murphy's good girl, a perfect casting choice. When she flees down a darkened street just ahead of the motorcycle rowdies, I could feel frozen shudders all over the theater of that day. It was like small town America about to be ravaged. Of course, the tables are turned when some of the town's bolder elements form into vigilantes and chase Johnny down the same street. I guess violence, as they say, really is a two-way street.Anyway, the movie's still a milestone worth catching up with. My only gripe is with the cheapness of the production. The town and the sets are bare bones, especially in the movie's latter half. Maybe that was intentional in order to highlight the story. But if so, it came at the expense of a realistic undercurrent, especially the atrocious exterior set for Johnny and Kathie's little get-away, appearing more like a stage play than a film. All in all, it's a signature movie for the young Brando, cementing his rebel image for a generation.

This movie opens with a caption that reads "THIS STORY IS SHOCKING." Well, I suppose that was true by the standards of 1953. By the standards of the 21st century, this isn't really that shocking, and with respect to the title, Marlon Brando's character of Johnny isn't really all that wild. This is actually pretty tame by modern standards. That doesn't mean it's a bad movie; it just means that it is dated, and probably wouldn't be of much interest to younger viewers today.Johnny is the leader of a motorcycle gang. As the movie opens, the gang is run out of town by the local sheriff after disrupting a motorcycle race. They end up moving on the a neighbouring town, are joined by a rival gang and eventually wreak havoc on the place, including one very tragic incident near the end of the movie. The "havoc" is mostly getting a bit out of control at the local bar, forcing a few girls to dance with them and breaking a few windows. As I said, not exactly "havoc" by today's standards. There were, however, a couple of things that I found very interesting about this movie.First was, in fact, the character of Johnny. Brando did well with the part. He makes Johnny an almost sympathetic character. Aside from getting into a fist fight with the leader of the rival gang, Johnny doesn't really participate in much of the havoc, and by the end of the movie seems to only want to get out of town. Johnny was almost likable in this. The other interesting part was the way in which the townsfolk responded to the gangs, eventually reversing roles and becoming themselves an out of control mob who are actually the ones responsible for the tragedy that happens near the movie's conclusion.Because of the expectations we have of modern movies, this doesn't come across as especially exciting or suspenseful, and the "gangs" come across more as troublemaking kids than what we today think of as members of motorcycle gangs. Still, there are those interesting aspects of the story that I mentioned above. (6/10)