The Black Souls are led by Chino (an absolutely berserk Dennis Hopper), and the Glory Stompers are led by Darryl (Jody McCrea). Chino jumps him and nearly kills Darryl, then steals his girl, Chris (Chris Noel, who has a wild life story. Starting as a model in her teens, she was painted by pin-up artist Gil Elvgren; she was a New York Giants cheerleader; she was in Girl Happy with Elvis and most interestingly, she toured Vietnam eight times, was the only woman to travel through South Vietnam to remote bases in helicopters and lived to tell despite mortar and assault rifle attacks in war zones. She had her own Armed Forces Network radio show and married Green Beret captain Ty Herrington, who sadly took his own life eleven months into their union. She’s continued to help veterans ever since.).
Originally written by James Gordon White (Bigfoot, The Hellcats) as a Western, it was turned into a biker movie, which makes sense, since you just replace horses with motorcycles. Director Anthony M. Lanza adapted another White script into a film, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, and edited The Sadist and Wild Guitar.
Joined by ex-Black Soul Smiley (Jock Mahoney), Darryl heads off to save Chris, battling gang members like Mouth (Casey Kasem!), Clean Cut (Jim Reader) and Monk (Bing’s son Lindsey Crosby). Plus, Robert Tessier as Magoo! This also has a great soundtrack by Davie Allen and the Arrows, along with Mike Curb.
What makes this worth watching is Hopper. He’s crazy in this, yelling at everyone and saying man so many times. He talked to Tarantino about this, as it’s one of the director’s favorite movies.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: One of your performances that’s one of my favorites?it’s a wacky, kooky performance?is in The Glory Stompers. I loved you in that. You know, that is the beginning of you as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet right there.
DENNIS HOPPER: Glory Stompers is the American International Pictures movie which actually, I ended up directing. That was my first directorial job because the director had a nervous breakdown. I drove the guy to a nervous breakdown and then I took over the picture.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You have this one line that’s just so fucking funny in it: when you’re fighting this guy, you beat him up, and then you look around and say, “Anybody else got anything else to say? Turn it on, man, just turn it on.”
DENNIS HOPPER: Well, thank you, man,